Putin Overhauls Military Command as Russia's Donetsk Offensive Stalls Behind Schedule

Vladimir Putin announced a sweeping reshuffle of Russia's top military leadership on Wednesday, installing new commanders for the war in Ukraine and creating a dedicated leadership post for drone warfare, according to the Moscow Times.

The changes touch nearly every layer of Russia's war effort. Colonel General Andrei Ivanayev now leads the "Center" group of forces, Russia's formation responsible for operations in central and northwestern Donetsk. He replaces Valery Solodchuk, who Putin moved into a new role as Deputy Defense Minister overseeing a consolidated logistics and supply command, according to both the Moscow Times and Kyiv Post.

Lieutenant General Pyotr Bolgarev, previously chief of staff for the "East" group, was promoted to command that formation, taking over from Ivanayev in what amounts to a lateral swap between Russia's two most active fronts in Ukraine's south and east.

Putin was explicit about what he wants from each. He called the Center group's mission to seize the rest of Donetsk region "critical and high-stakes," according to the Moscow Times, while praising the East group's push through southern Donetsk and occupied Zaporizhzhia as "dynamic and aggressive."

A new command for drone warfare

The most structurally significant move may be the appointment of Colonel General Denis Lyamin to head Russia's newly created Unmanned Systems Forces, a stand-alone branch of the armed forces. Putin called Lyamin "one of the most qualified specialists in this field," according to the Washington Examiner, and praised his prior unit, Battlegroup Center, as one of the military's "leading units."

Lyamin previously served as chief of staff for that same Center group, meaning three of Wednesday's top appointments all trace back to the same formation's leadership bench.

Putin framed the drone branch as a response to what he called lessons learned from the war, telling defense ministry leaders Russia needed someone who "proven to be the best in this field," according to the Washington Examiner.

Ukraine has moved in a similar direction. President Volodymyr Zelensky established a Long-Range Strike Command last month, saying it would "concentrate 100% of the available resources to reduce Russia's warfighting potential even more significantly." Retired NATO Supreme Allied Commander Philip Breedlove told the Washington Examiner that drone-saturated front lines have created a "no-go zone" where Russian forces are absorbing staggering losses just trying to advance.

A war criminal gets a promotion, not a demotion

Solodchuk's reassignment reflects significant tensions. Ukraine's HUR military intelligence agency lists him as a wanted war criminal over Russian forces' conduct during the 2022 assault on Kyiv, and Kyiv Post reports Ukraine has separately tied him to the occupation of Bucha, where hundreds of civilians were killed. Russia denies responsibility for Bucha despite documentation from international investigators and news organizations.

Putin did not treat the transfer as a demotion. He told Solodchuk that frontline commanders like him understand troop needs better than anyone, according to the Moscow Times, framing the logistics overhaul as recognition of battlefield expertise rather than a sidelining.

The offensive behind it isn't going as planned

The reshuffle comes as Russia's stated war aims face delays. Ukrainian battlefield monitoring group DeepState assessed that Russia's goal of controlling the entirety of Donetsk region in 2026 is now unrealistic given the current rate of advance, according to Kyiv Post, and said the same target would likely be out of reach even in 2027 if the pace doesn't change.

Russia still controls most of Donetsk region but not all of it. Moscow has thrown significant forces at breaking Ukraine's fortified line of cities, Kostiantynivka, Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, which form the backbone of Kyiv's remaining defenses there. Taking them would require Russian troops to punch through fortified positions and fight house to house across dense urban terrain, a much costlier proposition than the open-country gains Russia made earlier in the war.

The command shuffle follows Defense Minister Andrei Belousov's launch of what the Moscow Times describes as the military's largest administrative reform in more than a decade, suggesting Wednesday's appointments are one piece of a broader institutional restructuring rather than an isolated response to stalled momentum.

None of the three commanders named Wednesday has led a major offensive in their new roles yet. Whether Ivanayev can accomplish in the Center group what he could not fully deliver in the East, and whether Lyamin's drone command can offset the manpower losses Breedlove described, will show up in the next several months of DeepState's battlefield tracking, not in Putin's press statements.