President Volodymyr Zelensky met with the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny. Volodymyr Zelensky thanked him for two years of protecting Ukraine. They discussed updating the leadership of the Armed Forces and that the time has come for this. The president offered Zaluzhny to "continue to be in the team."
Nothing has been said about Valery Zaluzhnyiʼs release, there is no corresponding decree on the presidentʼs website either.
"The tasks of 2022 are different from the tasks of 2024. Therefore, everyone must change and adapt to new realities," Valery Zaluzhnyi added.
According to him, an important and serious conversation took place between him and Zelenskyi. They decided on the need to change approaches and strategy.
What preceded this?
On the evening of January 28, 2024, a number of Telegram channels, such as Trukha, as well as Verkhovna Rada deputy Oleksiy Goncharenko and journalist Roman Tsimbalyuk, wrote about the dismissal of Valery Zaluzhny from the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. There was no corresponding decree on the presidentʼs website. Subsequently, the media began to write about the dismissal with reference to sources.
"Babel" sources in the security forces reported before that that Zaluzhnyi was planned to be released by February 1, and among the most likely candidates for his place was the head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense, Kyryll Budanov. On January 28, some sources told about the order to release Zaluzhny, and some denied it. No one could confirm 100% the fact of dismissal.
At 20:00 of the same day, the spokesman of the president, Serhii Nikiforov, assured the media that Zaluzhnyi would not be fired. Closer to 9:00 p.m., Volodymyr Zelenskyi addressed Ukrainians with a traditional evening address, in which he did not mention Zaluzhny at all.
The next day, January 29, a number of Ukrainian and Western media, in particular CNN, wrote that the release of Zaluzhny is a matter of time and it has already been agreed. CNN then added to its story, indicating that the chiefʼs dismissal would be announced within days.
- On February 4 , Volodymyr Zelenskyi commented on information about the possible dismissal of Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny, saying that a "restart, change of leadership, not only military leadership" is necessary.
- Before that, Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhnyi wrote an article that the most important task for this year will be to adopt a new point of view on the forms and methods of using the Defense Forces for victory, as well as to create a new design of military operations.