Source: Haaretz

Putin has tasked Gen. Alexander Dvornikov with salvaging his faltering Ukraine war, based on the officer’s horrific record in Syria. The targeting of civilians at a railway station last Friday may be a sign of things to come

By Yossi Melman

The rite of passage of Gen. Alexander Dvornikov was a bloody affair.

A Russian missile attack last Friday killed more than 50 civilians and injured some 300 at a railway station in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine. U.S. officials, including National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, outed the 60-year-old general as the new supreme commander of Russian forces in the Ukrainian war theater. They accused him of masterminding the attack, which used the same brutal military methods he employed in Syria during its civil war.

A former senior Israeli military official, who closely studied the Russian general’s strategy and tactics in Syria, says Dvornikov had shown determination and some military sophistication in the Syrian arena. However, he also proved to be a typical product of the aging, rigid and bureaucratic machine of the Russian army. “I’m not sure he will be the savior of the faltering Russian campaign in Ukraine,” the official says.

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