The dismissal of Valery Zaluzhny is a crucial new phase in the war

NEWS IS hardly the best word to describe an announcement that has been rumoured for weeks but never quite come about. Even so, when Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, at last replaced Valery Zaluzhny with Oleksandr Syrsky as the commander of his armed forces, as part of a broader reorganisation on February 8th, it was as if something momentous had just happened.