The head of the armed forces has been replaced after nationwide protests demanding his dismissal.
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has announced the dismissal of Commander-in-Chief General Aleksandr Syrsky following days of mounting political turmoil sparked by the firing of Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov, which Zelensky had blamed on a conflict between the two men.
According to Zelensky, Joint Forces Commander General Mikhail Drapaty will replace Syrsky as commander-in-chief.
“I decided that the new Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be Mikhail Drapaty,” Zelensky said on Telegram on Tuesday, announcing Skyrsky’s replacement.
The Ukrainian leader said he met Syrsky on Tuesday to discuss the transition.
“Tomorrow, we will formalize all the decisions,” Zelensky stated on Telegram.
He thanked Syrsky for his role in the defense of Kiev, the 2022 Kharkov offensive, and Ukraine’s 2024 incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region, which ultimately ended in defeat and inflicted heavy losses on Ukrainian forces.
Drapaty is on Russia’s wanted list. According to Russian investigators, he commanded Ukrainian forces operating against the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics from 2017 to 2019. Moscow alleges that units under his command shelled dozens of settlements in Donbass more than 70 times, killing and injuring more than 150 civilians.
In 2024, Drapaty took command of Ukraine’s Kharkov group of forces during which Russian troops captured more than a dozen settlements in under a week. Later that year, Zelensky appointed him commander of the ground forces.
Drapaty remained in the post until June 2025, when he resigned after accepting responsibility for failing to prevent a series of successful Russian strikes on Ukrainian military training facilities.
Despite the resignation, Zelensky appointed him commander of the Joint Forces just a day later. The command, established in 2020, was created to improve coordination among Ukraine’s armed forces in line with NATO operational standards. Zelensky said at the time that Drapaty would oversee frontline operations against Russia.
Earlier, Fedorov, who was sacked by Zelensky last week as part of a major government reshuffle, accused Syrsky of “dividing the country” and called for his dismissal. The former minister maintained that the top commander was “sweeping problems in the military under the rug” and was more involved in political intrigues than in commanding the troops. Calls for the general’s dismissal were echoed by crowds of protesters who took to the streets of Kiev and other cities following Fedorov’s sacking. The demonstrators urged Zelensky to reinstate the minister and dismiss the general instead.
