EXPLAINER: 5 Things to Know About Why Zelensky Sacked Ground Forces Commander Gen. Sodol

• More than a little has gone wrong in Ukrainian ground operations since Lt. Gen. Yuriy Sodol got appointed in February.

Although Ukrainian forces have managed to hold the line and inflict more casualties on a more powerful Russian army than they have taken in the past four-and-a-half months, not all has gone well. A Kremlin offensive launched in May into the Kharkiv region captured around 100 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory against minimal resistance. Russian media reported some Ukrainian troops fled. Ukrainian media later documented that fortifications and strong combat forces weren’t there at all.

In the southern Dnipro River sector, despite near-overwhelming Ukrainian drone superiority, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) has struggled to supply – never mind expand – a toehold bridgehead on the left bank of the river.

Ukrainian forces have attempted small counterattacks in several sectors, but progress has been slow.

Critics have charged that Sodol tried to deal with that tough situation by ordering counterattacks, without artillery and armor support, piling up Ukrainian casualties, and ordering court martial commissions to find officers to blame for failures.

The last operational straw may have come in June, when Russian forces grabbed more ground in the eastern Pokrovsk sector.

• Sodol, the man who got sacked, isn’t particularly the type of senior army officer President Volodymyr Zelensky seems to like.

In more than two years of war, Ukraine’s President has repeatedly praised, and picked for promotion, younger officers with recent battlefield experience. Zelensky had a long-running conflict with the popular Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, due to Zaluzhny’s commitment to older officers who first saw combat with Russia in the 2014-21 period, and who by 2022 had become senior generals leading major commands. According to news reports the President’s relationship with Zaluzhny soured because Zaluzhny refused to order major attacks the presidential administration wanted launched for political reasons, and possibly, Zaluzhny’s popularity among Ukrainian voters.

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Sodol, 53, an alum of the sole combat-capable formation in the entire Ukrainian army in 2014 (the 25th Airborne Brigade), is a textbook representative of the “old school” leadership running the AFU in 2022, and beholden to Zaluzhny for their promotions.

In 2024, when Zaluzhny was sacked, Sodol was put forward by the presidential administration as an officer of continuity who would improve AFU performance without overturning the entire army chain of command. One possible explanation for Sodol’s June 24 sacking could be that Zelensky thought Sodol’s methods, and loyalties, weren’t adequate to handle the situation on the front for the past four months.

• Gen. Andriy Hnatov, the man replacing Sodol, is exactly the kind of young military professional President Zelensky has said Ukraine needs to win the war.

Close to an entire military career (14 years) younger than Sodol, Hnatov started in the military in tank forces, but in 2016 transferred into one of the few units in active battle with Russian forces at that time – the 36th Marine Brigade – as a junior officer and for the next five years commanded frontline Marines in combat, in the southern Mariupol sector.

Too young to be part of the cadre of senior officers running the AFU at the outset of Russia’s second invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Hnatov rose through staff and leadership to eventually command Ukraine’s Joint Force South, where he was a key officer in the successful defense of Mykolaiv, the liberation of Kherson and the October 2023 daring Marine assault, by his old brigade, to carve out a bridgehead on the Dnipro River’s left bank.

In February, when Zelensky replaced Zaluzhny, the Ukrainian President singled out Hnatov as one of five battle-tested leaders representing the best young combat commanders the AFU has produced.

Among Ukraine’s multi-million-member military volunteer movement – all of whom are potential Zelensky voters – cleaning house and replacing Soviet-trained senior officers with a new, younger generation of generals exactly like Hnatov is widely supported. 

• Some Ukrainian media is pushing the theory that Zelensky has decided that he can’t employ generals who don’t deliver results, or listen to frontline troops.

Yuriy Butusov, one of Ukraine’s highest-profile military journalists, in a Wednesday editorial, praised Sodol’s combat record and personal bravery and individual charisma when commanding smaller units in battle. At the same time, Butusov criticized Sodol for failing to make AFU ground forces efficient across the board, and for resorting to written instructions, military police investigations, and threats, rather than leading and organizing support for field commanders.

Butusov said that although Sodol had performed well as a frontline officer, when promoted to a senior leadership job Sodol tried to run an entire army with top-down orders and kept himself willfully unaware of the frontline situation. A man promoted beyond his ability has no business leading troops in war, and it was Zelensky’s job to take action, Butusov argued.

The major news outlet Ukrainska Pravda in an analytical article expressed much the same view, but also suggested Sodol may have chosen to take responsibility for army shortcomings, so that the Zelensky administration won’t prosecute his friends. Following his sacking Sodol had made no public comment on the criticisms. Kyiv Post was not able to contact him.

• Sodol probably ran afoul of a basic problem that the AFU is a fighting force of volunteers who are willing to fight and sacrifice, but often, not blindly follow orders or be perfect soldiers.

According to most Ukrainian major media, the catalyst for Sodol’s ouster was a public letter written by Bohdan Krotevych, a vice commander in the 12th National Guard Brigade – the famous Azov Regiment from the Mariupol Siege – in which the Azov officer accused Sodol of issuing criminal orders, trying to use military police and prosecutors to punish subordinates not willing to carry out the orders, and of fighting battles prioritizing Ukrainian control of points on a map, rather than minimizing losses. In most NATO armies an officer making public charges in wartime would have been arrested for insubordination – at least. To date, Krotevych has not been sanctioned. Politically influential figures (i.e., bloggers with hundreds of thousands of followers) allied with Zelensky repeated Krotevych’s charges, effectively arguing the Azov officer had an excellent point and it was far from the first time a field officer had complained about generals more interested in discipline and getting his orders followed, than minimizing casualties and listening to frontline commanders. Possibly, when faced with the choice of either backing Sodol, the AFU chain of command, and strict military discipline, or avoiding a public fight with the Azov Regiment and its supporters and replacing Sodol with someone younger, Zelensky chose the latter.