Yes, he is. But they have no choice. His tactics are very unpopular but they are necessary.

If they stopped throwing reserves into doomed counter-attacks, Russia would consolidate its gains easier and then advance faster. If they retreated from cauldrons where Russia has fire control over all resupply roads, where Ukraine is taking vastly disproportionate casualties, Russia would then advance faster. If Russia advances faster, Ukraine loses the last fortified belt of cities it has in the Donbass before they have the time to build more fortifications further back.

It would lead to a snowball effect. The more they retreat the worse their position gets and the worse the morale of the soldiers gets as well, and the less people will want to fight in a clearly losing war. Also, if Russia advances faster, Ukraine cannot maintain the illusion that it is holding the Russians back. Ukraine depends heavily on projecting an image of success to maintain the material support from the West which they are completely dependent on.

The idea that if Ukraine just ran the war like a Silicon Valley start-up with AI and drones then somehow they won't have to keep sending people into the trenches is utopian and childish. Fedorov's stint as Defense Minister where he tried to do just that proved this. The Ukrainian generals who actually understand how a war is fought were pissed with Fedorov because he diverted away resources for his drone offensive, resources that they desperately needed to hold the front.

The former Defense Minister's all-in-on-drones strategy generated images of burning refineries and euphoric PR headlines for the western media, but in the meantime they lost crucial locations like Konstantinovka and Krasny Lyman, all progress of Ukraine's own spring counter-offensive has been reversed, and Russia is advancing all across the front line, even in sectors that were static for years. It has also provoked Russia into striking much harder at Ukraine's own logistics.

Ukraine's material disadvantages are just too large. Syrsky's brutal human wave tactics are at least delaying and slowing down Russia. From a purely cynical perspective Syrsky was also right to push for lowering the mobilization age. Ukraine has a severe manpower crisis and there is no high-tech magic bullet that can replace manpower. All of this is extremely unpopular but the only other alternative is admitting that Ukraine has lost the war.

Also, the new appointee to Syrsky's post will probably just do more of the same, except nowhere near as competently, since he is mainly an ideological appointment, being one of the original war criminals sent by the Maidan regime in 2014 to brutally suppress the Donbass uprising in Mariupol where he was responsible for the massacre of over a hundred civilian protesters.