Russia has reorganised the command of its operations in Ukraine, with the new general having had extensive experience in battle operations in Syria.
Speaking to the BBC’s Gordon Corera on condition of anonymity, the source said the commander of Russia’s southern military district, Gen Alexander Dvornikov, now leads the invasion.
“That particular commander has a lot of experience of operations of Russian operations in Syria. So we would expect the overall command and control to improve,” the source said.
The new instatement was done in an attempt to improve coordination between various units, as Russian groups had previously been organised and commanded separately, the official said.
Russia has so far struggled to achieve its war aims 44 days into the invasion, failing to capture major cities such as Kyiv before eventually turning its sights to the Donbas region in the east.
The official said Russian tactics had seen them held back by smaller numbers of Ukrainian units acting more intelligently and with surprise – despite Russia being thought to have a “substantial” force of slightly fewer than 100 operational battalion tactical groups,
“Unless Russia is able to change its tactics, it’s very difficult to see how they succeed in even these limited objectives that they’ve reset themselves,” the official said.
The official added political imperatives might take precedence over military priorities, with Russia pushing forward to get some kind of success ahead of 9 May, when the country marks victory in World War Two.
BBC
