New Ukraine Military Chief Faces Monumental Task

A soldier in a camouflage uniform with a blue and yellow trident patch sits in a green chair. Another person in uniform is blurry in the background.

In a photograph released by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service, Maj. Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi attended a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday.Credit...Ukrainian Presidential Press Service, via Reuters

  

By Marc Santora

New York Times 

 

On May 9, 2014, a 13-ton armored vehicle tore through pro-Russian barricades in Mariupol, launching a young battalion commander into Ukrainian legend as a symbol of raw, improvisational resistance.

Today, that soldier, Maj. Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi, assumes command of Ukraine’s armed forces in a fraught moment of military and political transition, leading his country in a battle that could have scarcely been imagined a decade ago.

It is a war both of grinding attrition and high-tech innovation, where survival is dictated by which side can adapt faster and better integrate ever-evolving weapons into the daily slog of fighting under skies saturated with drones.

General Drapatyi, 43, who was appointed the top military commander by President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday night, replaced the 60-year-old Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi. General Drapatyi represents a newer generation of post-Soviet military leadership in Ukraine that has embraced more modern approaches to warfighting.  

He is one of the key architects of Ukraine’s “drone line” strategy. Instead of relying purely on static trenches holding vulnerable infantry troops, Ukraine created a continuous “kill zone” behind the front line filled with attack and reconnaissance drones and automated turrets.

That tactic has helped slow Russian advances, allowing Ukraine to take the initiative along parts of the front for the first time in years. It has also given hope to a war-weary nation that has lost tens of thousands of soldiers.

Individuals in camouflage assemble drone parts on crates in a field. A faint rainbow appears in a cloudy sky.

Ukrainian soldiers preparing to launch drones at a target in Russia in May.Credit...Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

While recent battlefield developments have been positive, especially with long-range strikes in Russia and Crimea, analysts warned that Ukraine must ensure a smooth handover in the military leadership to maintain momentum.

The challenge is heightened by the circumstances of General Syrskyi’s dismissal. Ukraine has been engulfed in turmoil since Mr. Zelensky fired his reform-minded defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, last week. Mr. Fedorov, 35, had clashed with General Syrskyi over strategy, including how far to go in relying on drones and robots. 

Demonstrators took to the streets to protest Mr. Zelensky’s decision to side with General Syrskyi. Over six days, the crowds moved from calling for Mr. Fedorov’s reinstatement to demanding General Syrskyi’s removal. Mr. Zelensky granted that wish on Tuesday night, replacing General Syrskyi with General Drapatyi, who had endorsed Mr. Fedorov and his vision of modern warfare.

In an online commentary, Mick Ryan, a retired Australian general who is a fellow at the Lowy Institute, a research group in Sydney, wrote, “The danger now is that a change of command creates a period of uncertainty while new leaders find their feet, and Russian forces exploit it.”

“The new team’s first job is to make sure the reshuffle does not slow the tempo of operations at the front, deep inside Russia — or innovation inside the Ukrainian military,” he added.

General Drapatyi steps into a matrix of crises. He must address problems with Ukraine’s recruitment system, while also bracing for a possible renewed Russian mobilization effort. He must shield energy grids from a winter strike campaign even as Ukraine’s most sophisticated air defenses run low on ammunition. And he must blunt Russia’s slow and bloody campaign to level the remaining bastions of defense in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

Mr. Zelensky’s firing of Mr. Fedorov also exposed a rift between the armed forces and the Defense Ministry over management of the war effort, which the military’s new leadership will have to navigate. 

It is not clear what role Mr. Fedorov will play going forward, but Mr. Zelensky has offered him other roles in the administration, and the president has said that the two men will meet again on Wednesday.

Mr. Zelensky said that he wanted to give Mr. Fedorov “a worthy leadership position that would allow him to bring together our country’s technological capabilities and ensure their continued development.”

For General Drapatyi, dealing with the president’s office will require a balancing act, analysts said. He will be pulled, they said, between asserting the operational independence favored by military reformers and accommodating Mr. Zelensky’s tendency toward direct battlefield management.

General Syrskyi’s willingness to comply with executive directives made him a predictable partner for Mr. Zelensky. General Drapatyi, by contrast, is taking over with backing from a reformist movement demanding a departure from rigid, top-down command.

Mr. Zelensky, in a dark jacket and olive pants, stands alongside a soldier in a camouflage uniform. Behind them, gray drone-like objects are displayed on stands.

Mr. Zelensky and Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the departing top military commander, in Kyiv in 2024. General Syrskyi’s replacement, General Drapatyi, represents a newer generation of post-Soviet military leadership in Ukraine.Credit...Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

Valerii Zaluzhnyi, a former top commander of Ukrainian forces who was fired by Mr. Zelensky in 2024 after the two clashed over mobilization efforts and counteroffensive strategy, said in a statement that the task ahead of General Drapatyi was “much harder than he imagines.” 

Taras Chmut, a prominent Ukrainian military analyst, said that the real fight in Kyiv was over defense procurement: what Ukraine buys for the army with its own money and with partners’ money, and which powerful defense contractors might lose income in the process.

General Drapatyi, analysts said, will have only limited influence over those decisions and over the efforts that Mr. Fedorov had started to address corruption and purchase more modern weapons, like drones.

Liudmyla Buimister, an independent lawmaker who is a former special forces commander and still serves in the military, said she expected General Drapatyi to change the culture of the high command, stop the practice of micromanaging battlefield decisions and bring more coherence to the deployment of forces.

General Drapatyi is expected to champion many of the same technology-driven initiatives that Mr. Fedorov was pushing. 

Jack Watling, an analyst at the Royal United Services Institute in London, wrote in an online commentary that, with the change at the top, Mr. Fedorov’s push for a data-driven approach to improve the military’s performance might now be possible.

General Drapatyi is also expected to empower commanders to make real-time decisions based on battlefield conditions. Under General Syrskyi, junior commanders bristled at what they viewed as micromanagement, with the General Staff needing to sign off before shifting tactics or withdrawing troops from compromised positions.

General Syrskyi gained a reputation for tolerating high numbers of casualties in holding such positions or conducting assaults, though he maintained that protecting soldiers was his priority.

With the recruitment shortfall, General Drapatyi, like Mr. Fedorov, is believed to see problems in internal processing, training flaws and corruption as primary factors, not a shortage of available men. Ukraine’s hope is that a change in culture in the high command will increase motivation to join the military.

“Already, we are seeing a boost in the morale of the people inside the armed forces and also in the general public,” Ms. Buimister said. 

Chief Sgt. Andrii Klymenko, 45, a Ukrainian soldier reached by telephone on the southern front, said, “There is a general sense of euphoria, which is creating a kind of hard-to-explain emotional boost in motivation.”

“The euphoria,” he added, “comes from the feeling that a meat-grinder style of command has been replaced, hopefully, by genuine battlefield leadership.”