The US Army has suddenly removed the general in charge of the corps that helps coordinate American support to Ukraine. The Army abruptly fired Lieutenant General Charles Costanza, commander of V Corps, roughly two months before his scheduled departure, ABC News reports.

The corps he led is central to the US role on NATO's front line with Russia. Costanza had commanded V Corps since April 2024, a corps partly based in Poland that has taken on an increasingly prominent role since Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine, helping coordinate US military support for Ukraine and managing the American presence on NATO's eastern flank.

The reason has not been made public

The Army confirmed the removal but not its cause. A service spokesperson said the circumstances remained unclear, and the Army said the matter was "referred to the appropriate authority in accordance with Army regulations," according to The Hill.

Reporting points away from politics. Two US officials told journalists that the removal was not political and was not initiated by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, with one source citing conduct that could ground a commander's removal at any level and a former defense official citing alcohol problems. Brigadier General John Mountford, the deputy commander for readiness, has begun his service as acting commander.

It comes amid a wider shake-up of the top brass

The timing places it in a turbulent period for US military leadership. Costanza's removal comes amid a broader shake-up in which more than two dozen senior officers have been removed or sidelined under Hegseth, often without public explanation.

The backdrop is US force posture in Poland

The command change lands amid questions over the US presence in Poland. This year, the Pentagon canceled a planned deployment of a Fort Hood-based armored brigade to Poland, and after the cancellation drew criticism in Warsaw, President Donald Trump announced the US would deploy 5,000 troops in the country.

Russian forces on the Pokrovsk axis in eastern Ukraine are preparing to intensify their assaults toward the town of Dobropillia, Ukraine's National Guard 4th Rubizh Brigade reported. The brigade says the enemy keeps trying to break through the defense but fails to reach its goals, with Russian troops destroyed on the approaches and armored equipment lost during this week’s mechanized assault. This week Ukrainian forces broke up a large mechanized attack in the sector.

For years, Russia has continued feeding assault groups into Ukrainian fire despite marginal gains, and Ukraine's drones and defenses keep converting those attacks into losses rather than ground.

Russia readies its next push toward Dobropillia

In the brigade's area of responsibility, Russian troops are getting ready to intensify offensive operations, the report says. They are running aerial reconnaissance and trying to clear mines from routes to move assault groups forward. Those groups lean on quad bikes—four-wheeled all-terrain vehicles—and motorcycles. This kind of transport will likely become one of the main ways the enemy tries to break the defense, the brigade said.

Russia has spent this stretch of the war trying to break out toward Dobropillia, a gateway to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in the free northern Donbas. Its main aim on this axis remains reaching the town, which sits north of the ruins of Pokrovsk.

Assault groups keep dying at the approaches

Despite constant assault actions, the enemy cannot achieve its goals, the brigade said. Rubizh forces detect Russian troops and destroy them on the approaches to Ukrainian positions. Russia concentrates its effort here but cannot realize its intentions.

To slip past Ukrainian drones, Russia has largely traded massed armored assaults for small groups on bikes and on foot, though most are killed before reaching Ukrainian lines. Ukrainian drones have also hit a Russian vehicle column elsewhere in Donetsk Oblast, striking more than 50 vehicles near Malynivka.

A mechanized assault broken up this week

This week, the brigade's soldiers joined a fight against a large mechanized Russian attack. The 1st Azov Corps of the National Guard and adjacent units broke it up, the brigade said on Facebook. In the fighting, Rubizh troops destroyed one armored combat vehicle and an MTU-72 bridge-layer—a tank chassis built to drop bridges across obstacles for advancing forces. They also helped strike other Russian equipment.

Ukraine's military logged 258 combat clashes along the front over the past day, with the largest number of engagements on the Pokrovsk axis.