SerpApi.Org
By Ben Aris in Berlin
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has named youthful Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi as Commander-in-Chief of the country’s armed forces, replacing the old guard Oleksandr Syrskyi in the most significant change at the top of Ukraine’s military since 2024.
Zelenskiy announced the decision on July 21 evening after several days of consultations with senior battlefield commanders and an escalating political crisis following a surprise reshuffle of the government last week. The president said the appointment and related changes to the General Staff would be formalised on July 22.
“I have decided that the new Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be Mykhailo Drapatyi,” Zelenskiy said. He thanked Syrskyi for his role in the defence of Kyiv, the 2022 Kharkiv counter-offensive and Ukraine’s Kursk operation, while stressing the need for “dignified treatment of every warrior”.
The change of guard comes after a week of political turmoil after Zelenskiy decided to sack the well liked Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who has repeatedly clashed with Sryskyi over reforms within the ministry. Drapatyi is a supporter of Fedorov, publicly throwing his weight behind the ousted minister after his dismissal was announced.
That decision spilled over onto the streets of Kyiv and other cities where protestors came out to demonstrate and call for Sryskyi to be fired in support of Fedorov who has been credited with many of Ukraine’s successes on the battlefield this year.
The appointment represents a generational shift in Ukraine’s military leadership. Drapatyi, 43, is more closely associated with the generation of officers shaped by the war that began in 2014 than with the Soviet-trained command structures that continued to influence the Ukrainian army after independence.
Syrskyi has a classical Soviet-era military training and at 60 belongs to the old generation of soldiers. He has been criticised as being careless with the lives of his soldiers and earned the moniker “The Butcher” after taking heavy losses during the defence of the city of Bakhmut that was eventually captured by Evgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenaries at a terrible loss of life on both sides.
New broom
Drapatyi immediate tasks will include preparing an updated defence strategy, continuing Ukraine’s transition from brigade-level command to a corps system and improving the supply of weapons, drones and other equipment to frontline formations. Zelenskiy also demanded a clearer approach to mobilisation and better protection against Russian air and missile attacks.
Drapatyi had publicly supported Fedorov’s attempts to modernise the military, an unusual intervention by a serving senior commander. “The army needs change, but without justice no change will make sense to the people who carry this war on their shoulders every day,” he said following Fedorov’s dismissal.
The demonstrators demanded Fedorov’s return, Syrskyi’s removal, and some chanting Drapatyi’s name as their preferred replacement.
The ‘flying BMP’
Born in Kamianets-Podilskyi in western Ukraine in November 1982, Drapatyi graduated from the Kharkiv Institute of Tank Forces in 2004 and began his career as a tank officer in the 72nd Mechanised Brigade.
He first became widely known during the fighting for Mariupol in May 2014. Drapatyi, then a major commanding one of the brigade’s mechanised battalions, was inside an infantry fighting vehicle that smashed through a barricade erected by Russian-backed separatists on one of the city’s main roads.
Footage of the vehicle crashing through the obstruction became one of the defining images of the chaotic opening months of the war in Donbas and helped establish Drapatyi’s reputation as a commander prepared to lead from the front.
Later that summer, Drapatyi helped lead his battalion out of an encirclement near the Ukrainian-Russian border after elements of the 72nd Brigade were cut off around Izvaryne and Chervonopartyzansk.
He subsequently served as chief of staff of the 30th Mechanised Brigade and commander of the 58th Motorised Infantry Brigade before moving into a succession of senior operational roles.
After Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Drapatyi served in southern Ukraine, where forces under his command helped halt Russia’s advance towards Kryvyi Rih. He later played a role in the campaign that forced Russian troops to withdraw from Kherson and the western bank of the Dnipro in November 2022.
In February 2024 he was appointed deputy chief of the General Staff with responsibility for military training. Three months later, when Russian troops launched a new offensive across the border north of Kharkiv, Drapatyi was sent to take control of the threatened sector.
The initial Russian attack exposed serious failures in Ukraine’s preparations and briefly threatened the city of Vovchansk. Drapatyi reorganised the defence and stabilised the line. When appointing him commander of the Ground Forces in November 2024, Zelenskiy credited him with having “effectively thwarted the Russian offensive operation” in the Kharkiv region.
Taking responsibility
Drapatyi’s reputation as a representative of Ukraine’s “new school” of commanders rests partly on his willingness to challenge military bureaucracy and accept personal responsibility for failures.
In June 2025, he submitted his resignation as Ground Forces commander after a Russian missile struck the 239th training ground, killing 12 Ukrainian soldiers and wounding more than 60.
“This is a conscious step dictated by my personal sense of responsibility for the tragedy,” Drapatyi said, acknowledging that he had failed to ensure his orders on protecting personnel were properly implemented.
Rather than remove him from the military, Zelenskiy accepted his departure from the Ground Forces but appointed him commander of Ukraine’s Joint Forces two days later, saying Drapatyi would concentrate exclusively on combat operations and the front line.
His responsibilities were subsequently narrowed during a reorganisation of Ukraine’s eastern command structure, a move widely regarded by his supporters as a demotion ordered by Syrskyi. However, Drapatyi retained considerable support among brigade commanders, soldiers, veterans and civil society activists, who saw him as a more consultative commander willing to listen to subordinates.
That reputation now faces its most severe test. Drapatyi inherits an exhausted military struggling with manpower shortages, uneven training, continued Russian pressure along the front and a command system criticised for centralised decision-making and its reluctance to acknowledge mistakes.
Zelenskiy is betting that a younger battlefield commander can turn public demands for change into a more flexible and technologically sophisticated army — while preserving the lives of the soldiers Ukraine can least afford to lose.
