Dvornikov, the Russian general who changed the war in Syria and will now lead the invasion of Ukraine.

The Russian general, elected by Vladimir Putin, played a key role in resuming the invasion of Ukraine during the Syrian war, in which soldiers under his command were accused of abusing civilians and committing crimes against humanity.

Alexander Dvornikov, a 60-year-old “old-school” general and a “nationalist through blood and soil,” was trained in Soviet military doctrines that consider the destruction of civilian targets as a means of gaining momentum on the battlefield.

Dvornikov is a career officer who began in 1982 as a platoon commander. Prior to joining Russian forces in Syria, he fought in the Second Chechen War and held various high-ranking positions. In September 2015, Putin entrusted him with an emergency mission to stabilize the position of the Syrian regime’s army, which Moscow and Tehran believed were intended to fall into the hands of the opposition.

In Ukraine, the decision to establish a new leadership on the battlefield was made after an unsuccessful attempt by invading troops to take Kiev and when Russia prepares for a larger and more focused effort to expand Russian dominance in the Ukrainian region. Donbass. , East of the country.

Bombing of civilian infrastructure

One of Dvornikov’s first actions in Syria was to establish an air base off the northwest coast, from where bombers destroyed towns and cities in Idlib province. The fall of the second Syrian city, Aleppo, was largely due to Russian airstrikes from this base in Jamie. And they regularly targeted hospitals, schools, bread rows, and other key points for civilians.

Dvornikov installed anti-aircraft batteries that gave Russian and Syrian aircraft an air advantage over Idlib, and destructive bombings were carried out over the past five years. Several soldiers who flew Russian fighters in the Syrian war have been shot down in Ukraine.

The general is also responsible for Russia’s campaign against ISIS in eastern Syria. Russian propaganda sought to merge the two conflicts, claiming that they were fighting the same enemy on both sides of the country.

Putin has intervened in Syria under the pretext of fighting the country’s spying terrorists. But its first airstrikes did not target ISIS or Jabhat al-Nusra, another terrorist group operating in Idlib. On the contrary, they went against the opposition groups that attacked the Syrian armored columns, which seriously weakened the power of Bashar al-Assad over the Alawite feudal lords and, subsequently, Damascus.

The supremacy of narrative and war

The Russian offensive changed the course of the war in favor of Assad. The public message war was also partly skewed towards the Syrian leader, with much less scrutiny of Russia’s official position, denying attacks on civilian infrastructure as a means of terrorizing populations and the sympathy of many sectors. According to Putin and Assad, the fight was not against dissidents but against terrorists.

For Putin, the Russian campaign in Syria was successful, and he awarded Dvornikov the Medal of Hero of Russia, one of the country’s major orders. Russia lost several soldiers and several planes in the conflict and always maintained an air advantage.

Dvornikov, who has served as commander of the Southern Military District since 2016, faces very different challenges in Ukraine: Russian planes still do not control airspace, and his ground forces have been significantly depleted by a regular supply of advanced Russian weapons. The Syrian rebels did not have it.

It will also be difficult to resist the enormous amount of information coming from the conflict zone and denying what Russia is saying about its successes on the battlefield. Syria is considered to be the best documented conflict of the modern era, but in this respect it falls short of the level of detail with which the world learns about the conflict in Ukraine. Smartphones And digital technology.

Translated by Francisco de Zarate.