‘Pitiless’ commander takes a grip of Putin’s faltering campaign

Gen Dvornikov will ‘deploy genocidal tactics used in Syria’, as war enters even bloodier phase in Donbas

A GENERAL who bombed Syrian cities into the ground and is already suspected of ordering a missile strike that killed 50 civilians evacuating at a train station in Donbas has been appointed Russia’s top commander in Ukraine.

Alexander Dvornikov is one of Vladimir Putin’s favourite generals and has been handed the task of refocusing

Russia’s stalled military campaign, but his appointment has prompted fears that the war will now enter an even bloodier phase in the Donbas.

“The move to empower him is a dangerous sign that Putin has no intention of giving up in Ukraine any time soon but could truly try to take most, if not all, of eastern Ukraine,” said Harry Kazianis, a US military analyst from the Center for the National Interest.

“Dvornikov is a smart tactician and strategist who will use siege warfare tactics like they were used in Syria. My fear is that Dvornikov is under orders that if he can’t take eastern Ukraine he will turn it into a giant Aleppo.”

The same day as his appointment was announced, at least 52 civilians were killed and more than 100 injured in a Russian missile strike on a railway station packed with people trying to flee from Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

Witnesses said that many of the dead were women and children.

A church member, who sheltered survivors, said yesterday: “They were traumatised. Half of them ran to shelter in the cellar, others wanted to leave as soon as possible.”

The Kremlin has denied responsibility for the attack but it had all the hallmarks of tactics used by Gen Dvornikov, who made his name ordering unrelenting bombing raids on the Syrian city of Aleppo in 2015 and 2016, which killed thousands of people. “This was an attack using Aleppo-style tactics,” said a military analyst in Moscow. “Dvornikov is known as a ruthless commander and will deploy tactics used in Syria now in Ukraine. He was in Chechnya 20 years ago. This is about liberating cities by reducing them to rubble.”

Mr Putin had expected a quick victory in Ukraine but the his army came up against stronger than expected resistance and after six weeks of fighting has suffered thousands of casualties.

The Russian president has now ordered his forces to retreat from outside the Ukrainian capital and to concentrate on taking control of more territory in Donbas.

Western intelligence sources have said that one of the reasons that the Kremlin’s campaign in Ukraine has stalled is because of its muddled command structure which had been split into three areas of responsibility.

Putin now hopes that as the overall commander Gen Dvornikov will install more operational discipline.

He had been in command of Russia’s Southern Military District, which invaded Ukraine from Crimea, and has been considered a relative success.

The thickset 60-year-old career officer, unsmiling and with pale blue eyes, looks every inch a Russian military commander.

He is best known for leading Russia’s initial military intervention in Syria in 2015, a campaign hinged around a ferocious bombing campaign that killed an estimated 2,000 civilians, including 200 children.

“Having failed in Ukraine so far, except for committing war crimes, Putin has appointed a new commander, General Alexander Dvornikov, with extensive experience in committing heinous genocidal crimes against defenceless civilians in Syria,” said the Syrian Revolution Network, a group linked to pro-West rebels in Syria.

In the six months that Gen Dvornikov ran Russia’s military campaign in support of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, his air force conducted 9,000 bombing sorties destroying large parts of Aleppo, Homs and other smaller towns.

He is known for having helped to devise a Russian strategy to break the will of civilians living in besieged cities by deliberately targeting basic infrastructure such as bakeries, hospitals and water sources.

For Russia and the Assad regime, the approach was a success.

His campaign forced Westernbacked rebels and Islamic State extremists to pull out, “liberating” huge areas for Assad and impressing Mr Putin who gave him the Hero of Russia top military medal when he returned to Moscow.

The Kremlin has not commented on Gen Dvornikov’s promotion.