Why Zelensky replaced top general nicknamed 'The Butcher'

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has sacked his country's commander in chief, General Alexander Syrskyi. It comes after days of widespread protests resulting from another dismissal. Popular defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov was removed last week after clashing with Suzuki. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh has more. A generational shift the younger Ukrainians doing the fighting, now run by a general near their age, 43 year old Mykhailo, dropped out. Alexander, aged 60, who for years met the Soviet brutality of Russia with similar resolve and ruthlessness. Nicknamed the Butcher, he became the face of the relentless, ugly toll of the war on frontline troops, sending people to die as something a wartime general has to do, along with always be winning to stay popular. And while he had notched up enough small victories that did not save him from modernity, his wartime resumé begins with the defense of Kiev, where thousands of locals bolstered the city's rout of the Russians. The hockey counter-offensive in late 2022 saw Russia collapse, a startling reversal exposing poor command and supply lines, for which Sisk is credited. Putin was the biggest man to show him the facility, but his rivalry with his boss, then commander Valery Resolution, many analysts have said, lets risky to push a focus on the city of Bakhmut during the next summer and leave. The main push of the counteroffensive. Ukraine's main chance to break Russia's road to Crimea, with a flood of new western equipment to filter solution. He lost his job months later to Circe, who swiftly needed a win after so many slow losses, including Bakhmut. The response was daring and stunning, if not strategically sound in the long run. The first invasion of Russia since the Nazis Kursk, A major embarrassment for Putin and a turn in the narrative until Ukraine slowly left the next year. Ultimately, the war changed around Ukraine and Syrskyi, as the younger generation found tech could compensate for a lack of brute force, and people. Mykhailo Fedorov, the disrupter in chief, a new minister of defense, leading the use of drones early to hit deep inside Russia. It data open tenders for equipment transparency, questioning everything and robots and more robots. Nothing could be further from the Syrskyi way of war, but it began to work and gained popularity. The major metric in Zelensky's decision making. Fedorov too popular, it seemed, when he openly clashed with Syrskyi, leaving the older general, whose failings and frailty had been the talk of Kiev for months. Suddenly, the victor when Zelensky edged out a rising star. That was until rare Kiev protests switched to focus on Syrskyi, leaving Zelensky with another popularity crisis his own and in need of a new military commander,