Syrskyi dismisses 2 corps commanders over lost territory, media reports
Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi has dismissed Volodymyr Silenko and Maksym Kituhin, commanders of the 17th and 20th respective Army Corps, Ukrainska Pravda reported on Sept. 15, citing two unnamed military sources.
These are the first senior personnel changes since President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Feb. 3 that the Ukrainian Armed Forces would transition to a corps-based structure.
Both commanders were reportedly removed one to two weeks ago following battlefield losses in the areas under their command, according to Ukrainska Pravda.
The 17th Corps, led by Silenko, was responsible for the sector of the front line south of Zaporizhzhia, where Ukrainian forces recently lost control of the village of Kamianske and were partially driven out of Plavni, both located along the Dnipro River.
Kituhin’s 20th Corps was deployed along the border between Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts, which Russian forces crossed in August, digging into the latter region for the first time.
The Ukrainian army has been undergoing a slow and problem-ridden transition to a corps system for over six months.
The ongoing military reform aims to introduce a corps-level command structure above the brigade level, enhancing coordination and operational control across larger units.
The shift involves phasing out operational-strategic, operational-tactical, and tactical groupings in favor of a streamlined command system.
The main obstacle in forming effective corps-level structures is the requirement that subordinate brigades operate within a single sector of the front line, allowing commanders to maintain direct control.
In practice, due to the overstretched character of Ukraine's army along hundreds of kilometers of front line and the lack of strategic reserves to facilitate a reorganizing of units' sectors, this condition has not been met in many cases, and several corps remain only partially formed.
Most of the newly formed corps are currently concentrated in areas overseen by the "Donetsk" operational-tactical group, where the frontline situation remains challenging.
In early August, the National Guard's 1st Corps Command, took over the defense of the Dobropillia sector after Russian forces advanced approximately 10 kilometers (6 miles) into Ukrainian territory.
However, this came without the physical transfer of all the 1st Corps' units, most of which remained holding their previous sectors.
Further north, Ukraine's famous 3rd Assault Brigade has had more success forming a cohesive corps structure in its area of responsibility, between the towns of Lyman and Borova.
