Putin’s military reshuffle is more about politics than a change of strategy

Russia, argues Ed Arnold from the Royal United Services Institute thinktank, is suffering from broken command and control. “Political objectives are confused,” he said, highlighting Putin’s unclear goal to “denazify” Ukraine, a country without any Nazis. “This cannot be translated into a military objective.” At the start of the war, Arnold highlights, many Russia soldiers were not told what their true mission was. Now it is unclear what Russia’s endgame is, given its forces clearly cannot conquer Ukraine, or even the whole of the Donbas, despite months of fighting in Bakhmut and nearby Soledar.