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- Valerii Zaluzhnyi has been the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces since July 2021.
- He has been largely credited for Ukraine’s successful military strategies against Russia.
- Zaluzhnyi, who once wanted to be a comedian, has silently been modernizing the military since 2014.
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Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via Reuters
Source: The Economist
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Zaluzhnyi was born in a village called Novohrad-Volyns’kyi, in Zhytomyr Oblast. The region experienced heavy Russian shelling in the early months of the war.
Zaluzhnyi was born in the garrison because his father was stationed there. It is unclear what military ranking his father had.
Source: Time Magazine
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Zaluzhnyi joined the Institute of Land Forces of the Odessa Military Academy in the early 1990s just as the Soviet Union collapsed.
Several years later, he attended the National Defence Academy in Kyiv, where he graduated with honors in 2007.
From 2007 to 2013, Zaluzhnyi quickly climbed up the rankings, taking up a few military posts including as commander of a mechanized brigade.
In 2020, he received his Master’s degree in International Relations from The National University Ostroh Academy. He also attended many NATO trainings outside of Ukraine.
Source: Politico, Time Magazine
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“You see there was this mix, he’s done something on the battlefield, he commands the troops, he goes back to studying, he gets promoted, he does a little bit of everything,” Marina Miron, a research fellow in the Defence Studies Department at Kings College London, told Insider.
Press Service of General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine/Handout via Reuters
During his post in Crimea, Zaluzhnyi started making some tactical changes to the military that moved away from the old Soviet mentality and paved the way for new fighting tactics.
Miron told Insider that the war in Donbas was a “huge influence” on his leadership style.
“The war in Donbas shaped his idea of basically creating this flexible structure within the Ukrainian Arm Forces, seeing how wars are being conducted in contemporary times,” Miron said.
Source: Time Magazine
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“But in eight years of war, until 2022, both I and people like me understood it all perfectly well,” he told The Economist.
Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via Reuters
In an interview with ArmyInform, Zaluzhnyi said it was always his dream to become a soldier, but that he never expected to be a top commander
“My promotion was like a normal soldier. I was appointed — I took up my duties, took office, was offered another — also moved,” he told ArmyInform, according to Politico. “I never thought that one day I would become a general and reach high ranks.”
Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via Reuters
Ukraine’s Armed Forces are comprised of the Army, Navy, and Air Force.
As the commander-in-chief, Zaluzhnyi is responsible for “combat readiness, training, and the use of the Armed Forces,” he previously told Radio Svoboda, according to a Politico translation.
Source: Radio Svoboda
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Zaluzhnyi pushed to reform Ukraine’s ex-Soviet military to follow a more Western model where lower-level officers can make decisions and innovate.
“He’s more in favor of operating in small and dispersed units who are autonomous, rather than the USSR style top-down leadership,” Miron told Insider.
This “requires training, it requires trust, it requires command and leadership because you have to trust your commanders on the ground that they are taking the right decisions,” she added.
Source: Politico
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Two months after his promotion, Zaluzhnyy told Ukrainian Radio Svoboda that he is doing everything to prepare the army for a “full-scale aggression” from Russia.
Less than a year later, on February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
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“His leadership enabled the Ukrainian armed forces to adapt quickly with battlefield initiative against the Russians,” he added.
Source: Time Magazine, Politico
—Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (@CinC_AFU) October 6, 2022
Zaluzhnyi inherited the $1 million from a Ukrainian-American software developer called Gregory Stepanets, his family told The New York Times.
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“I learned from Gerasimov. I read everything he ever wrote … He is the smartest of men, and my expectations of him were enormous,” Zaluzhnyi told Time Magazine.
“I was raised on Russian military doctrine, and I still think that the science of war is all located in Russia,” he said, adding that he keeps Gerasimov’s collected works in his office.
Miron told Insider: “It’s interesting now to see that Zaluzhnyi is now on the one hand for Ukraine, and Gerasimov, somebody whom he admired, is right on the other side in that same role.”
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Source: Radio Donbas
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Miron said his nickname is ironic, because “his leadership style is very, very different from this iron fist.”
Source: Politico
—Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (@CinC_AFU) November 21, 2022
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“Zaluzhnyi seems to be a little bit different in the sense that he’s not seeking the spotlight, he’s not trying to get into politics,” Miron told Insider.
Miron said she believes Zelenskyy will not replace his military commander anytime soon “because there are a lot of people who like Zaluzhnyi, who support Zaluzhnyi, and who listen to Zaluzhnyi. And replacing him, especially now, might be very, very risky.”
