SerpApi.Org
Ukraine has named Maj Gen Mykhailo Drapatyi as the new commander-in-chief of its military, replacing Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi after days of mass protests in Kyiv and other cities demanding Syrskyi's removal. In a Facebook post, Drapatyi thanked Syrskyi for his work in strengthening the military and said, "I grew up in it," referring to the army, adding, "I will work responsibly, with focus and with respect for the people defending our state today."
The 43-year-old officer is seen as part of a new generation of Ukrainian generals shaped by the country's fight against Russia. He has spent most of his career in combat roles, including leading Ukraine's Joint Forces, which oversee day-to-day military operations across different branches of the army, and he is known for being sent to steady the most difficult parts of the front.
Drapatyi built his reputation in 2014 in the early months of Russia's war in eastern Ukraine. In May that year, as a major leading a battalion of the 72nd Brigade, he headed an armoured column into central Mariupol to rescue police officers and territorial defence officials surrounded by pro-Russian militants who had threatened to burn them alive. When the convoy was stopped by a barricade more than a metre high, Drapatyi, riding in the lead vehicle, ordered the driver to speed up, and the vehicle went over the barrier. The moment, captured on video and widely shared, came to be seen as one of the standout episodes of Ukraine's early resistance.
At the time, such decisive action was unusual for the Ukrainian army, which was still poorly equipped, largely untested and cautious about moves that could raise tensions with Russia. Months later, Drapatyi's battalion spent weeks surrounded by Russian-backed forces near the Russian border. Instead of laying down arms and leaving, he chose to fight his way out, leading 260 soldiers and more than 30 vehicles in a night-time breakout.
Over the next decade, he moved up through frontline commands, leading brigades in eastern Ukraine and then serving as deputy commander of the Joint Forces when Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. In 2024, he took command of forces that stopped Russia's advance towards President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's hometown of Kryvyi Rih, helped push Russian troops back from parts of the Kherson region, and organised the defence that blunted a renewed Russian offensive in the Kharkiv region. Zelenskyy later made him ground forces commander that year.
He resigned from that post after a Russian strike killed numerous Ukrainian soldiers at a ground forces training centre, the second such attack on the facility in months. Drapatyi took personal responsibility, saying he had failed to ensure that his orders were carried out, and wrote in his resignation report that officials shielding one another from accountability had blocked his efforts to reform the branch. Soon after, Zelenskyy appointed him commander of the Joint Forces. His hard line on reform became more public on Thursday, when former Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said military leaders had resisted change and put pressure on commanders pushing for it, including Drapatyi, who he said had received three reprimands from Syrskyi. Drapatyi replied in a social media post that was later dismissed, backing the Defence Ministry's leadership. He said many changes had been pushed through "despite the system, rather than thanks to how it worked." He added that a commander's silence "has never been a form of responsibility."
Born in 1982 in Kamianets-Podilskyi in western Ukraine's Khmelnytskyi region to a family of teachers, Drapatyi trained as a tank officer at the Kharkiv Institute of Tank Troops, graduated in 2004 and was posted to the 72nd Separate Mechanised Brigade in Bila Tserkva, then commanded by Syrskyi. His appointment now brings a battle-hardened officer with a long frontline record to the top military post as Ukraine reshapes its command during the war.
With PTI Inputs
