Ukraine will struggle to drive out Russia’s invading army without sweeping changes to rid its military of Soviet-style generals who are coldly indifferent to the lives of ordinary soldiers, a prominent MP has said.
“I’m fighting for changes in this culture to help us achieve victory,” Mariana Bezuhla, the outspoken deputy head of the Ukrainian parliament’s defence and security committee, told The Times in Kyiv.
Bezuhla has been mired in controversy since late last year when she accused General Valery Zaluzhny, the gruff military leader who was widely seen as a national hero, of lacking a plan to defeat Russia. Zaluzhny was later dismissed as commander-in-chief by President Zelensky. Bezuhla is now among the fiercest critics of General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Zaluzhny’s replacement.
Both generals, she said, differed little from their Russian counterparts in their attitudes, which she described as “sovok,” a slang word that means a Soviet-style mindset. “In this case, it’s even worse,” she said. “It’s a degraded, hybrid version of Sovietism, with corruption and nepotism.”
She added: “They are very rigid in their thinking. One of the main problems of this culture is a disrespect for truth. When something bad happens, they always try to cover it up. If you talk about genuine problems, you come under pressure.”
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Ukraine’s top generals were fêted for holding back Russia’s invasion in 2022, but complaints about their tactics and attitudes towards troops have become more frequent since Kyiv’s failed counteroffensive last year and Moscow’s recent advances in the east of the country.
Bezhula also accused some generals of sending soldiers on suicide missions just so that they could file reports stating that attempts had been made to recover areas that were seized by Russian forces.
“Generals can order military administrative officials, military cooks or others without the proper training to try to regain positions. But they know they cannot do this and that they will die. They do this simply so that they can tick the right boxes,” she said.
As Russia achieved a recent breakthrough close to the strategically important town of Toretsk, General Yuriy Sodol, who oversees ground forces in eastern Ukraine, was socialising with friends at a restaurant in Odesa, 450 miles to the south, Bezuhla wrote in a social media post. Some reports say he was celebrating his son’s graduation from military academy.
“He was drinking in another city while his soldiers were dying,” Bezhula said. She had previously called Sodol a criminal and a butcher. She and other critics have also accused Sodol of failing to organise the defence of Mariupol in 2022, as well as tactical errors that allowed Russia to advance in the Kharkiv region this year.
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Sodol was dismissed last Monday shortly after stinging criticism by a well-known officer from the Azov brigade, one of Ukraine’s most respected fighting forces. Although he did not mention Sodol by name, Major Bohdan Krotevych said on Telegram that he had filed a complaint to Ukraine’s state bureau of investigation concerning “a military general who in my opinion has killed more Ukrainian soldiers than any Russian general”.
Zelensky removed Sodol hours after the online post and replaced him with General Andrii Hnatov. Bezuhla welcomed Sodol’s dismissal, but said that his removal should be followed by a deeper shake-up of the military, including the replacement of Syrskyi.
“Sodol is just a part of the system, a part of the wider problem,” she said. “But I am cautiously optimistic that his dismissal will trigger a wave of new people, new technologies and a different approach to the war.”
Her comments were echoed by Oleksiy Herman, a Ukrainian army officer, who said Sodol was not the only general to have thoughtlessly sacrificed the lives of Ukrainian troops. “[This] is an unprincipled Soviet format of warfare where the life of a soldier or officer is worth nothing,” he wrote on social media.
In place of old-school generals, Bezuhla said, Ukraine needed quickly to promote brigade commanders whose experience of the conflict with Russia since 2014 has given them the vital skills to adapt swiftly and effectively to battlefield realities. “They should be the future of our defence forces, but right now, there is a glass ceiling,” she added.
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Zelensky, a former actor with no military experience, initially had no choice but to trust the judgment of established generals, she said. “But now his vision is also more and more in favour of how to organise innovation in warfare and decision-making, rather than relying on reports from old-style generals.”
Bezuhla, who served as a military doctor in eastern Ukraine during battles with Russian forces in 2015, was elected to parliament after standing as a candidate with Zelensky’s Servant of the People party. She quit her membership of the party this year after a row over her criticism of Zaluzhny, but remains a member of its parliamentary faction. She continues to support Zelensky.
Shortly after Russia’s invasion, she travelled to Poland as part of a Ukrainian delegation whose aim was to persuade Warsaw to donate old Soviet T-72 tanks, artillery and other equipment. The negotiations were tough and Bezhula went on hunger strike for 76 hours until Poland agreed to provide Ukraine with the weaponry. “No food, just water,” she said. “It helped advocate for our cause.”
Bezhula’s fearlessness has prompted suspicions that she is acting as a mouthpiece for the presidential office, which she denies. “She acts independently, but at the same time she reflects the mood within the presidential office, as well as in some groups within the military sphere,” Volodymyr Fesenko, a Ukrainian political analyst, said. “She is ready to tear chunks out of Zaluzhny and Syrskyi and anyone else for Zelensky; it’s possible that they appreciate her for this in the presidential office.”
Fesenko also said that her visits to the front had ruffled feathers. “She unapologetically gives orders to generals as to how they should fight,” he said. “She has long imagined herself as a commissar in the style of the civil war of a century ago, and almost as a personal representative of Zelensky. No one gave her such a status, but she feels that way and acts accordingly.” Bezhula denied that she had tried to issue orders to generals.
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Her willingness to rock the boat has earned her some respect within the armed forces. “Initially, the military did not like Bezuhla very much because of her criticism of Zaluzhny that led to his dismissal, but now they read her comments with pleasure because she raises important issues,” a defence ministry source said. “She is partly right,” a general staff source said. “But openly scuppering military leaders in wartime is not the best option.”
A colonel who met Bezhula during one of her visits to the front said that she had been eager to listen to new ideas about how to improve the military. “And most importantly, she’s not a coward,” he said, on condition of anonymity. “Soldiers sense that immediately and value it.”
In the years before Russia’s invasion, Bezhula said, western co-operation with Ukraine’s armed forces was largely “superficial” and failed to bring about the necessary structural reforms. “This was convenient for both sides. Some training courses were held and there were reports about Nato standardisation, but in fact almost nothing changed.
“Weapons and ammunition are the priority for Ukraine. Without them, we would not exist. But Nato member states should also integrate more on decision-making approaches. They should insist on changes to the system.”
