# Valerii Zaluzhnyi **Status: stub — expand.** Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from July 2021 to **February 8, 2024** — the general who led the defense of Kyiv, the 2022 Kharkiv and Kherson counteroffensives, and the failed 2023 counteroffensive. In interviews and a long essay published by *The Economist* at the start of November 2023 he described the war as having reached a positional deadlock; the "stalemate" wording came from the interview. The public break with [[Volodymyr Zelensky]]'s more optimistic line preceded his replacement by [[Oleksandr Syrsky]]. He was then appointed Ukraine's ambassador to the United Kingdom, and is widely treated as a potential political rival to Zelensky whenever elections are held. ## See also - [[Ukraine War Timeline]] · [[Ukrainian Armed Forces Command Structure]] · [[Ukrainian Military Doctrine Split]]