Ukraine’s army is under new management as of… well, as of now.

I suppose that’s not strictly accurate. Volodymyr Zelensky’s still in charge. But his top general, Valery Zaluzhny, was relieved of his duties on Thursday. The decision, which could prove controversial domestically, served as confirmation of a story that Kyiv denied as recently as last week.

According to several accounts, Zaluzhny was asked to resign in late January amid a deepening rift with Zelensky over war strategy, but the general, who on some measures is more popular than the president, refused.

“I met with General Zaluzhny [and] thanked him for two years defending Ukraine,” Zelensky said Thursday, adding that Zaluzhny could, if he chose, “remain part of the team.” It wasn’t immediately clear what that meant, or what role Zaluzhny might play going forward. Whatever the case, Ukraine “will definitely win!” Zelensky declared.

It was, in part anyway, Zaluzhny’s failure to parrot Zelensky’s rah-rah messaging that sealed the general’s fate. In November, Zaluzhny characterized the war as a “stalemate,” an assessment that rankled Zelensky’s office. By then, it was clear enough that the much ballyhooed Ukrainian counteroffensive had come to naught. “There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough,” Zaluzhny told The Economist.

True or not (it was true), Zaluzhny’s evaluation was unwelcome in the president’s office, where Zelensky was at pains to convince Ukraine’s allies in Brussels and Washington that the war effort is still worth funding. Although most Western politicians support the cause, there were (and still are) pressing questions about Ukraine’s odds. Those questions, along with the usual partisan rancor inside the Beltway, have stalled additional US aid and that, in turn, disadvantages Ukraine further, raising the specter of ongoing underperformance in what some fear is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

For its part, the EU managed to maneuver around the rotund barrier that is Viktor Orban to establish a new €50 billion support fund, but discussions in Washington remain mired in a bitter battle over America’s southern border.

On Thursday, after a Senate border security-foreign aid compromise bill was declared dead on arrival in Mike Johnson’s fractious House, Chuck Schumer managed to take a small step towards advancing a stripped-down version of the legislation that includes funding for Kyiv. But like Ukraine itself, the bill faced long odds in what promised to be an arduous battle. “Failure to pass this bill would only embolden autocrats like Putin and Xi, who want nothing more than America’s decline,” Schumer said.

It’s likely that Zaluzhny’s ouster will be leveraged by the Kremlin for propaganda purposes both at home and abroad. Indeed, I’m sure Vladimir Putin’s sprawling network of Kremlin mouthpieces around the world was hard at work Thursday spinning the story as evidence of disarray in Kyiv, with the goal of dispiriting Zelensky’s backers in Western capitals.

General Zaluzhny was credited with foiling the initial Russian offensive which failed spectacularly in the face of staunch resistance around the capital. Subsequent Ukrainian breakthroughs exposed Russia’s military as uninspired and spread too thin across newly-captured territory. Since then, Russia’s defenses have deepened, and although Ukraine managed to inflict a number of high-profile embarrassments on the Kremlin with strikes against the Russian fleet, breakthroughs on land — which is to say along the front lines — are now few, far between and attainable only at great cost.

In short, Ukraine’s now engaged in a bloody war of attrition with an erstwhile super power run by a dictator who views his own troops as expendable, and thereby has no qualms about a protracted conflict. Or at least not on days when Russia’s successfully holding the line, which at this point is most days.

The path forward isn’t clear. Zaluzhny and Zelensky were reportedly at odds over a plan to draft hundreds of thousands of men to support Ukraine’s depleted forces. It goes without saying that domestic support for the war is strong (Ukrainians are defending their own homes, fields and families after all), but it’s probably fair to suggest that most people who wanted to fight enlisted a long time ago, which means anyone drafted now would be an unwilling conscript. Shooting at Russians when they’re at your front door is one thing. Volunteering for trench warfare is another entirely, especially when Putin’s probably given up on capturing territory he doesn’t already occupy.

It’s possible that some in the military could view Zaluzhny’s ouster as politically motivated, at least in part. As noted above, he’s very popular. So popular, in fact, that he might one day compete for the presidency assuming, of course, there’s still a presidency to compete for once the war’s over.

On Wednesday, before meeting with Joe Biden, Olaf Scholz warned in an Op-Ed for The Wall Street Journal that a Russian victory in Ukraine “would not only be the end of Ukraine as a free, democratic and independent state, it would also dramatically change the face of Europe.” “We have to do our utmost to prevent Russia from winning,” he said, speaking directly to GOP holdouts in Washington.

Donald Tusk tried channeling Reagan. “Dear Republican Senators of America: Ronald Reagan, who helped millions of us win back our freedom and independence, must be turning in his grave today,” he said on social media. “Shame on you.”

Dear Donald Tusk: This isn’t the party of Reagan anymore. And Republicans have no shame.