Russia’s Reported New Ground Forces Chief Has Led ‘Meat Grinder Attacks’

Russian President Vladimir Putin has appointed a new commander in chief of Russia’s ground forces who has been involved in some of the war’s most brutal fighting, according to multiple reports.

Colonel General Andrei Mordvichev replaced General Oleg Salyukov in the role on Thursday, state-controlled Russian outlet Izvestia reported.

Deutsche Welle and several Russian outlets, including the government-published Rossiyskaya Gazeta, also reported the move. A list of official presidential decrees announced Salyukov’s departure, but has not yet confirmed that Mordvichev is the replacement.

The Institute for the Study of War said Friday that Mordvichev’s reported appointment represented an endorsement of his preference for “grinding, highly attritional, infantry-led assaults,” and said this suggested the Kremlin “aims to institutionalize these tactics.”

Military analyst Yan Matveyev credited him as one of the main initiators of the approach, in a post to Telegram after the appointment was reported.

Mordvichev has previously said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is “only the beginning.” In an interview with Russian state media in 2023, Mordvichev said that the war “will not stop here,” Newsweek reported at the time.

As deputy commander of the Central Military District, Mordvichev also presided over Russia’s capture of the coastal city of Mariupol in 2022, one of the war’s most brutal sieges.

That battle, which is estimated to have killed more than 8,000 people, ended with Russian forces taking the Azovstal steel plant, where Ukrainian forces had held out for two months.

Mordvichev is also credited with the capture of the strategically important city of Avdiivka in February 2024.

Ukrainian officials said that Russia lost more than 30,000 troops killed or wounded taking the city, using its infamous “meat grinder” approach of grinding down resistance with wave after wave of infantry attacks.

Mordvichev’s reputation has grown steadily, and he was embraced by Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of the Chechen Republic, as “the best commander” during his promotion to head up the Central Military District last year, The Times of London reported.

In 2022, Ukraine claimed to have killed Mordvichev in an airstrike near Kherson, but he was later seen meeting with Kadyrov.

He is under multiple European sanctions, according to the sanctions database OpenSanctions.

Salyukov, who became the ground forces commander in 2014, is a few days away from his 70th birthday, when he will age out of military service.

He’s being moved to a senior post on the Russian Security Council, per a presidential decree.

A provocative appointment during peace talks

The reported appointment came as the two sides met in Istanbul for peace talks.

The talks, which began Friday, were left to lower-level officials after Putin declined to attend in person. The Russian officials included many of those who carried out fruitless negotiations in Istanbul in 2022, according to ISW.

Some of Ukraine’s European allies criticized Putin for his no-show, with Estonia’s Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna describing it as a “slap in the face.”