Washington, Moscow and most of the world expected Russia to demolish Ukraine’s military within days.

But not Valeriy Zaluzhnyy, the commander in chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, who has orchestrated and led the fight that has left Russian forces bloody, beaten and in messy retreat.

If a single person can be credited with Ukraine’s surprising military successes so far — protecting Kyiv, the capital, and holding most other major cities amid an onslaught — it is Zaluzhnyy, a round-faced 48-year-old general who was born into a military family, and appointed as his country’s top uniformed commander by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in July 2021. Zaluzhnny and other Ukrainian commanders had been preparing for a full-on war with Russia since 2014.

Unlike, say, “Stormin’” Norman Schwarzkopf, who led U.S. troops in the first Persian Gulf War, or David Petraeus, who presided over the Iraq war and was nicknamed “King David,” Zaluzhnyy has largely avoided the spectacle of a celebrity commander — deferring that role to Zelenskyy, a former actor and comedian who has captured the public’s imagination.

In many ways Zaluzhnyy epitomizes a new generation of Ukrainian officers who cut their teeth in the grinding eight-year war in Donbas and, when not on the front, deployed to training ranges across Europe to drill with NATO forces — experiences that have sanded off many of the authoritarian edges produced by decades of rigid Soviet military training.

That collaboration with NATO has molded a group of professional-minded officers that aspired to Western standards and helped build a decentralized, empowered, more agile way of warfare than the Russian model, which has floundered in the Ukrainian mud.

“I can probably talk about [Zaluzhnyy] not just as a single person but as a representative of the new generation of Ukrainian military — senior, middle level and even low level officers,” said Oleksiy Melnyk, a former Ukrainian air force officer who is now co-director of foreign relations and international security programs at the Razumkov Centre, a Kyiv-based think tank.

In September 2021, two months before U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration began issuing loud warnings of a Russian invasion and sharing intelligence about the troop build-up on Ukraine’s borders, Zaluzhnyy described preparing for an attack.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/08/ukraines-iron-general-zaluzhnyy-00023901

Ok

Salute

Useless press, exposing the guy to the world, he might be killed

Well done

WATCHOVER:
Useless press, exposing the guy to the world, he might be killed

He is already a public figure. He can't be hiding.

joyandfaith:

He is already a public figure. He can't be hiding.

Thats how they killed Canadian snipper

WATCHOVER:

Thats how they killed Canadian snipper

Na you killed him.

joyandfaith:


Na you killed him.

No

WATCHOVER:

No

Na you killed him in Nairaland.


https://www.marca.com/en/lifestyle/world-news/2022/04/10/6252f55646163ffd908b45b3.html

joyandfaith:


Na you killed him in Nairaland.


https://www.marca.com/en/lifestyle/world-news/2022/04/10/6252f55646163ffd908b45b3.html

Abeg leave me

Unlike the slowpoke putin's generals dying like chikens in ukraine.

WATCHOVER:

Thats how they killed Canadian snipper

It seems he is still alive according to the links I found.......


https://observers.france24.com/en/europe/20220324-wali-canadian-sniper-death-ukraine-russia-debunked

https://coffeeordie.com/canadian-sniper-wali-russians/