Russia has appointed a new war chief for Ukraine, the Associated Press reported on Sunday, citing an unidentified United States official. Since Moscow’s troops invaded Ukraine on February 24, the Russian military had no central war commander on the ground.

General Alexander Dvornikov, who would be leading the conflict, is one of Russia’s most experienced military officers, the US official said, according to AP.

Meanwhile, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said asserted on Sunday that Russia had suffered setbacks on the warfront, and “no appointment of any general can erase that”.

“This general will just be another author of crimes and brutality against Ukrainian civilians,” Sullivan said, according to AP. “And the United States, as I said before, is determined to do all that we can to support Ukrainians as they resist him and they resist the forces that he commands.”

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that the newly-appointed general has a “record of brutality” in Syria.

“The reports we’re seeing of a change in military leadership and putting a general in charge who was responsible for the brutality and the atrocities we saw in Syria shows that there’s going to be a continuation of what we’ve already seen on the ground in Ukraine and that’s what we are expecting,” Psaki was quoted in the Associated Press.

According to CNN, 60-year-old Dvornikov was appointed as the first commander of Russian military operations in Syria. During his command between September 2015 and June 2016, Russia backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to takeover eastern part of the Aleppo city. After intense bombarding, the city fell to the Syrian government in December 2016.

In 2016, Putin had awarded Dvornikov the Hero of Russia medal, which is the country’s honourary title.