Ukraine’s Zelensky sacks army chief after days of protests

KYIV - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 21 sacked his Soviet-trained army chief Oleksandr Syrsky following a political crisis triggered by the removal of a popular, young and tech-savvy defence minister.

The Ukrainian leader announced he was appointing joint forces commander Mykhailo Drapaty in his place.

Syrsky, 60, had served in the role since 2024 and was among Kyiv’s most experienced commanders, having led the defence of Kyiv at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

His removal came after days of protests in support of ousted defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who accused Syrsky of forcing him out and stalling his attempt to reform the military.

“I have decided that the new Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be Mykhailo Drapaty,” Zelensky said in a post on Telegram.

“I am grateful to Oleksandr Syrsky and to each of our warriors for Ukraine’s strong front-line positions.”

Questions over Syrsky’s future came to the fore last week, when Zelensky removed highly-popular defence minister Fedorov just six months after appointing him.

Fedorov, a 35-year-old whose efforts to modernise the army brought him into conflict with its leadership, accused Syrsky of blocking his ideas and pressuring Zelensky to remove him - a charge Syrsky denied.

The row exposed rare divisions within Ukraine’s military and political leadership at a time when Kyiv appeared to be in its best position in the war for months.

Ukraine’s forces have slowed Russia’s advances to a crawl in recent months, while long-range Ukrainian strikes have struck Russian oil refineries that Kyiv says fuel the invasion.

‘Fresh hope’

Drapaty, the army’s new commander-in-chief, is a decorated major-general who previously commanded Ukraine’s ground army and fought against Moscow-backed separatists during the Donbas war.

He is famous in Ukraine for a video purporting to show him ramming an armoured vehicle through a separatist checkpoint in the city of Mariupol, during then skirmishes between pro-Russian militias and government forces in 2014.

The 43-year-old thanked Zelensky for the appointment in a post on Facebook.

“Serving Ukraine has always been an honour for me, and during the war for independence it means absolute responsibility,” he said.

“Glory to the nation. Death to the enemies,” he said.

Fedorov welcomed Drapaty’s appointment, saying it injected “new hope” into the fight against Russia.

“This is a breath of fresh air and a new hope in the struggle of free people for freedom and justice,” he said on social media.

Fedorov’s ousting on July 15 prompted thousands to protest across Ukraine, many of whom expressed frustration at lack of reforms in the military and called for Syrsky’s removal.

For a while, Zelensky - seen as mistrusting of those with political ambitions - had relented pressure to sack Syrsky, a career military man.

Analysts told AFP that Syrsky was not a threat to Zelensky, unlike his predecessor, the ultra-popular Valery Zaluzhny, who was also removed.

But Syrsky was criticised for not caring about the scale of human losses and stalling reforms to procurement, equipment and mobilisation.

Drapaty becomes Ukraine’s third commander-in-chief since Russia invaded in February 2022.

Both Russia and Ukraine have been escalating aerial strikes in recent months, and the United Nations reported a surge in civilian deaths in Ukraine in recent months. AFP