Everything about him exudes a sense of familiarity and charm. The round features of his face, his deep, calm voice. His rural family name (Zaluzhny means "behind the pond" in Ukrainian). His common sense too. Just after being appointed chief of staff by Volodymyr Zelensky on July 27, 2021, he authorized his forces to instantly retaliate against Russian attacks. Before this change, the Ukrainian military, engaged in fighting in the Donbass since 2014, needed to fill out paperwork and wait for authorization from the top of the hierarchy before responding to Russian artillery strikes, a process that infuriated soldiers and hurt morale.
Despite his nickname, the "iron general," which suggests severity and brutality in the upper ranks, his personality is generally good-natured. In Zaluzhny's case, "iron" refers more to his inner discipline.
There is something deeply unconventional about this general. He does not inflate his ego with rows of medals hanging from his chest. Instead, he sports a baby Yoda patch (from Star Wars), on his bulletproof vest, and cartoon cats on the back of his helmet. This is in stark contrast to his Russian counterpart, 68-year-old Valery Gerasimov, who looks like a parody of Soviet masculinity, with his chiseled cheeks and hammered jaw. Vladimir Putin's chief of staff has never once been caught smiling and has completely disappeared from public view since December 29, 2023.
Curiously, Zaluzhny publicly professes his admiration for the intellect of "the other Valery," whose writings he has carefully studied. "He's strong, cunning and unpredictable. He is a powerful enemy who we must respect in order to defeat," he told Ukrainian blogger Dmytro Komarov in May 2023. A member of the next generation, who joined the military after the fall of the USSR, the Ukrainian makes no secret of his loathing for the Soviet system and its representatives. Widely regarded as a reformer, he has also declared that he "wouldn't spare a second" in getting rid of any "representative of the Soviet army, whatever his rank," if they were to be uncovered in his army.
However, the general public doesn't know much about the general. He has only answered journalists' questions three times since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, preferring to express himself through two lengthy analytical articles, published in The Economist and CNN.
Valeri Fedorovich Zaloujny was born on July 8, 1973, in Zviaguel, a medium-sized town in northwest Ukraine, into a military family. His official biography states that, from childhood, he always wanted to be a soldier. After graduating from his hometown's modest technical high school for mechanical engineering, he moved to Odessa to embark on a military career.
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