KYIV, Oct 9 (AFP) - Russia appointed a new general to lead the war against Ukraine after Moscow suffered a series of military setbacks that triggered rare criticism of the battlefield command.

The announcement on Saturday was Moscow’s third senior military appointment in the space of a week.

The change follows the reported sacking earlier this week of the commanders of two of Russia’s five military regions, as its forces have suffered dramatic reverses in northeastern and southern Ukraine in recent weeks.

General Sergey Surovikin was appointed “commander of the Joint Grouping of Forces in the areas of the special military operation”, the Russian defence ministry said, using the Kremlin’s term for the invasion of Ukraine.

According to the defence ministry’s website, Surovikin, 55, was born in Siberia’s Novosibirsk region. He has led Russia’s Air and Space Forces since 2017.

Surovikin had combat experience in the 1990s conflicts in Tajikistan and Chechnya and, more recently, in Syria, where Moscow intervened in 2015 on the side of Bashar al-Assad’s government. He was accused of overseeing a brutal bombardment that destroyed much of the city of Aleppo.

Until now Surovikin led the “South” forces in Ukraine, according to a defence ministry report in July.

The name of his predecessor has never been officially revealed, but some Russian media said it was General Alexander Dvornikov – also a general of the second Chechen war and Russian commander in Syria.