Ukraine beheads its military as its performance begins to soar

Ukraine replaced its top military and political defence personnel in the past week even as its armed forces arguably achieved their best performance in three years.Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov’s ouster on July 15 was followed six days later by the replacement of Commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii. Both men were followed out the door by some of their most capable lieutenants.Ukraine seemed to have found a winning formula, making 2026 Russia’s worst year of the war for manpower losses, territory and economic performance at home.Some 193,500 its troops have been killed or seriously wounded, said Ukraine’s defence ministry – the first year Russia has averaged losses of 32,000 a month according to Syrskii – and Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service estimates it is unable to reach recruitment targets.This pain has produced a net gain of just 81.1 sq km for Russia, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank that assesses territorial movements using geolocated open sources, and the trend of gains-to-losses is improving in Ukraine’s favour.If June was a disastrous month for the Russian operation, netting it just 30 sq km, July has so far been wors...