Girasimov - Is He a Good Guy?

Girasimov has a lot of combat experience, going all the way back to chechnia and obviously georgia and syria. We can infer that much of his security counsil was surprised when he launched this operation. But there is no way that girasimov and shoge didn't know, right? They clearly were in the loop from the early days and had time to plan and prepare for this. So why Girasimov in particular? Do you has performed so poorly given that he has so much combat experience?"