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A new commander has been appointed in the Western Military District of the Russian Federation, according to the Russian media, citing Russia’s Unified State Register of Legal Entities. The reports are yet to be officially confirmed.
Lieutenant-General Roman Berdnikov has replaced Colonel-General Alexander Zhuravlev, who has been the head of the Western Military District since 2018.
Berdnikov was previously the commander of the integrated combined arms forces of the Eastern Military District. He later headed a group of Russian troops in Syria. In 2020, he was awarded the rank of Lieutenant General.
In 1991, he graduated from the Kiev Suvorov Military School.
“In Ukraine, where I studied at the Kiev Suvorov School, then the oppression on the basis of nationality had already begun. I remember, before we graduated, the nationalists from RUH [the Ukrainian nationalist movement, created in 1989] killed a student of the Suvorov School … It was necessary to decide not only whom to become in the future, but also in which country to live,” Roman Berdnikov recalled in one of his interviews.
The Russian military is yet to confirm the reports. On the website of the Ministry of Defense, Zhuravlev is still listed as the head of the Western Military District, and Berdnikov is the commander of the 29th Combined Arms Army.
The reasons of such a decision are also unclear. The change could be a result of mistakes by the previous military command on the battlefield or during the partial mobilization in Russia. These suggestions are actively spread by the Ukrainian media. The same media have previously clamed that Roman Berdnikov was killed in a Ukrainian attack on an armored column.
On the other hand, amid the ongoing retreat of the Russian military in several regions of Ukraine, such changes in the Russian military command may lead to positive results on the front lines.
