Putin ousts his top general from running the war in Ukraine

Putin has nearly run out of generals to take charge of his war in Ukraine. He has sacked so many that the strategy, whatever it was at the beginning, is now in tatters. The latest to get his marching orders is General Valery Gerasimov. He's the most senior commander in Putin's armed forces. As chief of the general staff he is the military boss of all the services. But he was given the added responsibility of masterminding the war in Ukraine after all his predecessors in that job failed to deliver. You would have thought that Gerasimov of all the generals available would have managed to get some success for his commander-in-chief. But apart from building up Russian defensive positions in eastern and southern Ukraine, Putin's army has been pretty static for months, first, waiting for the Ukrainian counter-offensive to begin and then attempting to survive the onslaught. What Putin wants, presumbaly, is some positive news, like the defeat of the Ukrainian army. But he knows that is not going to happen and now he has the prospect of his troops being showered by hundreds of thousands of cluster bombs, provided by the US. While the move by Joe Biden is highly controversial and opposed by many in the Nato alliance, the fact is these weapons could cause devastating casualties in the Russian trenches. So Gerasimov goes back to his old job and yet another war commander, Colonel-General Mikhail Teplinskiy, leader of Russia's airborne forces, takes over. There must be some doubt that the new man will fare any better than his failing predecessors.