"This Appointment Is Extremely Unpleasant For Russians"
- 23.07.2026, 16:15
How Drapaty, as the new commander-in-chief, might change the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has appointed Major General Mykhailo Drapaty as the new Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The website Charter97.org asked Ukrainian military and political analyst with the “Information Resistance” group Oleksandr Kovalenko to comment on the appointment of the new Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine:
— I can say that Mykhailo Drapaty is the most compromise-friendly candidate. This doesn’t mean that all the others were any worse, better, or anything of the sort. No. However, Mykhailo Drapaty has one distinctive feature.
He is well known for leading a breakthrough into Mariupol in 2014 while commanding a small unit, laying the groundwork for the city’s subsequent liberation from Russian intervention. That is his specific achievement. As for his current achievements, since 2022, General Drapaty has earned the nickname “Firefighter General” in the army.
He is sent to the most challenging sectors of the combat zone to neutralize the threats that arise there. A recent example is the Dobropillia sector in 2025. The Russian 51st Combined Arms Army was attempting to break through precisely in the direction of Dobropillya. At that moment, Drapaty was dispatched to neutralize the threat. As a result, not only was the offensive campaign halted, but a number of Russian units found themselves surrounded. They were forced to retreat.
This operation was so resource-draining for the 51st Combined Arms Army that they still haven’t been able to recover from it or resume offensive operations. The losses were extremely heavy.
Next was the Kupyansk sector. There, Drapaty carried out an operation to localize and isolate the Russians’ Dvurechensky bridgehead on the right bank of the Oskol River, as well as to clear Kupyansk of Russian infiltration groups. It’s worth recalling how, in October 2025, first General Kuzovlev, then Gerasimov, Belousov, and finally Putin declared that Kupyansk “was under the full control of Russian troops.”
So the question arises: where is this control? This is General Drapaty’s achievement. Therefore, I can say this: he is a man who adapts quite well to any situation. He has an excellent grasp of the operational situation. And for the Russian occupation forces, such an appointment is extremely, extremely unpleasant. Alexander Syrsky is, after all, a man of the old conservative school, whereas Mikhail Drapaty sometimes uses completely unexpected methods to accomplish various tasks.
— How might the Ukrainian Armed Forces change under his leadership?
— First and foremost, it’s the technological component. High-tech systems for destroying the enemy have been introduced into our troops for quite some time now. But the problem is that this has often been accompanied by extremely deep, all-arms bureaucracy, stemming from the system to which Alexander Syrsky was committed. On the one hand, I can’t say that this is bad, but I also can’t say that it’s good in modern warfare. It all depends on the specific situation.
For this reason, of course, the process by which Ukrainian forces obtain the necessary high-tech capabilities to destroy the enemy in the close-range, medium-range, and deep rear zones will be greatly simplified. In other words, we can expect greater digitalization of the armed forces. This is quite likely under the new Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.