Why Putin chose the general who rescued Al-Assad in Syria for his “Plan B” in Ukraine

Alexander Dvornikov. That is the general born in 1961 who chose Vladimir Putin to try to reverse the irregular march of his invading army in Ukraine. Above all, it will concentrate its forces in the east of the country that has been savagely attacked since February 24. The “Plan B” of the Russian head of state - after the failed attempt to seize the capital, Kiev - will then be to conquer the entire eastern Ukrainian fringe and unite it with Crimea in the south. In order to achieve the union of Donbas with the irregularly annexed peninsula in 2014, it needs to finish taking Mariupol, which has been under siege for 48 days and where the possible use of chemical weapons is being investigated.

Dvornikov is a highly experienced general. Especially when it comes to leaving cities in ruins. Aleppo suffered from it. Bashar Al-Assad, the Syrian dictator, thanked him for his presence. Thanks to his brutal tactics, he managed to sweep away all threats against the Damascus regime. He was born in Ussuriysk, a city near the Chinese border in the far eastern part of Russia 61 years ago. He served in East Germany - like Putin himself - and left in 1994. He fought in the second Chechen war. Years later he was appointed deputy commander of the eastern district and then chief of staff of the central.

But it was in devastated Syria that his fame rose. It succeeded in reversing the low morale of the forces of the Al-Assad regime and succeeded in attacking the rebels by air, land and sea. Damascus had handed over all power to Putin's general. “His success in reversing the situation and rescuing the Assad regime earned him the approval of the Kremlin: in 2016 he was named Hero of the Russian Federation, the highest distinction in the country. He was also appointed commander of the Southern military district. The district is small, but strategic: it adjoins Donbas, where Russian forces and their representatives have fought Ukraine since 2014, and where the next phase of the current war is likely to take place. It was this command, and his consequent knowledge of the area, that probably led him to be named a key man for Ukraine,” said The Economist.

But his behavior is far from exemplary. On the contrary. According to the same magazine: “That command also included it on a British sanctions list: it is supposed to oversee air support for a Russian attack on Ukrainian naval ships in 2018, which helped Russia consolidate its occupation of Crimea. Even more worrying was the conduct of the forces he commanded in Syria. During his first three months in command, Russian air strikes are estimated to have killed nearly 700 members of the jihadist group Islamic State, but also nearly 800 civilians. Human rights organizations accuse Russia of using cluster munitions in built-up areas and of deliberately attacking hospitals around Aleppo, a city controlled by the rebels. In 2020, the NGO Human Rights Watch cited the Hero of the Russian Federation award to General Dvornikov as proof of the 'lack of accountability' in the war in Russia.”

It was he himself who recognized his own boundless brutality. Many believe that his performance in Syria will be repeated in Ukraine. “Heavy civilian casualties were an inevitable by-product of General Dvornikov's strategy in Syria. In an article published in 2018, he pointed out the difficulty of fighting in the mountains, in tunnels under cities and in night operations. Firepower was key, he said: air strikes, missiles fired from warships, artillery and, in Aleppo, 'constant fire... day and night, without rest'. Psychological warfare was also important: 'Without information operations, we would not have succeeded in Aleppo, Deir ez-Zor and Ghouta, 'General Dvornikov said, referring to urban areas that were practically razed.”

Putin knows that his troops, so far, played a poor role and far from expectations. They were never able to take Kiev, they have been trying to take over the strategic port city of Mariupol for 48 days, and battles are still going on in the east, where all their forces will now be concentrated. In part it could be the fragmentation of the command that led to the failure of the Kremlin's “Plan A”. Now, “its operations are expected to be much better coordinated than before,” a Western official tells The Economist. “We have not yet seen evidence of this in terms of what they are doing, but... we would expect command and control to improve.”

However, not everything is so easy in the face of Putin's “Plan B”. “General Dvornikov can't fix everything - morale remains low, officials say, with some Russian units refusing to fight, and labor also remains a problem - but the next few weeks will show whether he can get the Russian war machine back on track,” concluded The Economist.

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