Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi takes command of the army. A long profile of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, representing a new generation of Ukrainian officers

On May 9, 2014, an organized group of pro-Russian militants stormed the Mariupol city police department. At that moment, a meeting was taking place there: the police chiefs and the deputy commander of Territorial Defence Forces were planning how to knock out the pro-Russian forces from the city center. The militants surrounded the building and demanded that they lay down their weapons, otherwise they threatened to burn everyone alive. The leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs turned to the military for help.

It turned out that the 72nd Battalion of the Separate Mechanized Brigade, commanded by Major Mykhailo Drapatyi, was stationed near Mariupol. The battalionʼs fighters drove to the city center in several IFVs. When the fighters of the 72nd Battalion of the Brigade broke into the building, the militants had already captured the first floor and stormed the second.

The Ukrainian military helped their comrades escape from the surrounded building and retreat to the Mariupol airport.

On the way back, the column encountered a barricade more than a meter high. Mykhailo Drapatyi was sitting in the first car of the column. Hearing from the driver about the barricade, he ordered: “Floor it!”

His IFV broke through the barrier, jumping on it like on a springboard — this moment was captured on a famous video. Mykhailo Drapatyi recalls that only later did he finally understand what had happened.

1

Mykhailo Drapatyi is a career soldier who has dedicated his entire life to the Defense Forces. He was born in 1982 in Kamianets-Podilskyi into a family of teachers. After school, he entered the Kharkiv Institute of Tank Troops, at the command faculty, and graduated in 2004 as a lieutenant.

That same year, he was assigned to serve in the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade in Bila Tserkva, then commanded by Colonel Oleksandr Syrsky. After five years of service, he was appointed deputy commander of a tank battalion for armaments, a position that a major should hold.

“He was a workaholic, just like he is now, and he wanted to change things for the better. A senior lieutenant is promoted to the rank of major, especially in peacetime, only for merit,” Drapatyi’s former colleague, who crossed paths with him after the full-scale invasion, tells Babel.

Shortly before the annexation of Crimea, in 2014, Mykhailo Drapatyi received a new position — commander of the 2nd battalion of this brigade.

2

During the ATO, the brigade where Mykhailo Drapatyi served advanced to the Donetsk region. Drapatyiʼs battalion was located in the Mariupol area: it was supposed to prevent militants from entering the depths of Donbas and prevent the movement of weapons and ammunition. In mid-June 2014, when other units were liberating Mariupol, his battalion was already on the border with Russia — in the Chervonopartizansk area of the Luhansk region.

The task of Mykhailo Drapatyi and several other units was to prevent Russian equipment and troops from entering Donbas through the eastern border. They succeeded: the Russiansʼ capabilities were significantly reduced, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces were advancing.

Therefore, from mid-July 2014, the Russians began shelling Ukrainian units near the border from their territory — the Armed Forces of Ukraine could not strike at Russian territory in response. Both battalions of the 72nd brigade found themselves in a ring of fire: they were pressed from the rear by the “DPR” troops.

Drapatyiʼs fighters spent 28 days surrounded.

"It was hard when you canʼt hear the rear, you canʼt hear the reserves," Drapaty recalled in an interview. For some time, they tried to drop everything they needed from An-26 planes. But it became increasingly difficult to deliver food and ammunition.

The first battalion of the brigade decided to break out of the encirclement through Russian territory. They returned home, but without weapons: they were disarmed and released by Russian regular troops.

Drapatyi consulted with the commander of the self-propelled howitzer division Dmytro Khrapach and decided to break through with a fight. Drapatyi recalls that Khrapach had only trucks and tractors, while he had infantry fighting vehicles and tanks. He led the escape.

On the night of August 3-4, 2014, they began to leave Izvaryne through Zelenopillia and Dyakove. The fighters followed a route that the troops had not used before — through fields, rather than along roads where “DPR” militants were waiting for them. According to Mykhailo Drapatyi, the battalion’s scouts worked well then: in three days, the fighters broke through minefields and past ambushes.

Drapatyi brought out of the encirclement 260 soldiers and over 30 pieces of equipment from his battalion, as well as soldiers from the 24th and 51st mechanized brigades, the 79th airmobile brigade, the 3rd special forces regiment, and border guards. This breakthrough earned Drapatiy great respect among the military.

3

Mykhailo Drapatyi was awarded the rank of lieutenant colonel, and after a short rest he was sent to study at the National Defense University — at the operational-tactical level. Later, he was transferred to a correspondence course and returned to Donbas as the chief of staff of the 30th separate mechanized brigade. There he chose the call sign "Rubin".

Together with the brigade, he went to the Volnovakha direction of ATO. By that time, the contact line had already “frozen”, the chief of staff of the brigade was left with administrative matters. Quite soon, in September 2016, Drapatyi was appointed commander of the 58th separate infantry brigade.

By that time, the brigade had captured the Avdiivka industrial zone, pushed the militants back to the Donetsk-Konstantynivka highway, and held its positions for six months. A month after Drapatyiʼs arrival, the brigade was taken to rest in Konotop.

After resting in the summer of 2017, the brigade again went to the ATO zone and replaced the 93rd brigade in positions near the Bakhmut highway, between Bakhmut and Debaltseve. Mykhailo Drapatyi led the brigade until September 2019.

4

In April 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky won the presidential election. He began changes in the military leadership. The first person he replaced was the Chief of the General Staff.

Mykhailo Drapaty iwas at that time studying at the National Defense University (NDU) again, now at the strategic level: this is the last stage of military education, which allows you to rise to the ranks of generals. Drapatyi graduated from the NDU with honors.

At the graduation ceremony on June 18, 2021, the British Ambassador to Ukraine Melinda Simmons presented him with a symbolic award as the best graduate of the operational-strategic level of training — the Queenʼs Transitional Honorary Sword.

As two independent sources told Babel, Drapatyi’s release coincided with the time when the Office of President Zelensky was planning to replace commanders who had served in the Soviet Army. Mykhailo Drapatyi was considered for the position of commander of the Ground Forces to replace Oleksandr Syrsky.

Drapatyi even had a conversation with the president, but Syrsky ultimately remained in his position. Drapatyi was appointed head of the training department at the Operational Command “North”.

In December 2021, the president awarded him the rank of brigadier general.

5

On February 24, 2022, Mykhailo Drapatyi was in the east, in the area of the Joint Forces Operation. He was in charge of one of the command posts.

“I understood that this was a full-scale war. I was ready [for it], because it had been going on for eight years,” Drapatyi said in an interview.

When Russian troops were 30 kilometers from Kryvyi Rih, Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhny ordered Drapatyi to go to the city and lead the Operational Group (OG) "South". The situation in the direction entrusted to Drapatom was deplorable.

"In front of Kryvyi Rih stood 500 National Guardsmen and the newly formed 60th brigade, where the career officers could be counted on the fingers of one hand. The rest were mobilized," a soldier who found himself in command with Drapatyi tells Babel.

Over time, Drapatyi managed to stabilize the situation. He began training the soldiers from the brigades entrusted to him, as many of them were mobilized. At the same time, they looked for weaknesses in the enemyʼs defenses.

The counteroffensive began in September-October 2022. The task force was supposed to reach the city of Beryslav in the Kherson region, gain a foothold and stand on the banks of the Dnipro River. It accomplished its task, liberating almost 30 settlements and advancing 30 kilometers. Drapatyi discussed each operation with the commanders, including the successful ones.

In November, the Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated the entire right-bank Kherson region. Since OG under the command of Drapatyi had achieved its goal, it was disbanded in November 2022. In early 2023, Drapatyi was appointed head of the Kherson OG, and in the fall, he was involved in planning the landing of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the right bank of the Dnipro River — between Kherson and Kakhovka.

“Then we were advancing little by little, squeezing the islands out of the Russians,” says Drapatyi’s brother.

Then the 126th Brigade of the Ukrainian Airborne Forces, which was at Drapatyi’s disposal, entered and took up positions under the Antonivskyi Bridge in the Kherson region on the left bank of the Dnipro River. In order to advance quickly, Drapatyi asked the commander-in-chief for one mechanized brigade.

However, at this point, command of the operation, now known as the “battles for Krynky”, was given to the then commander of the Marine Corps Yuriy Sodol. He led the Marines’ approach to Krynky and other settlements on the left bank of the Dnipro River.

Drapatyi was removed from planning the operation — he only accompanied and assisted. The operation actually ended in failure, and the Defense Forces withdrew with heavy losses in the summer of 2024.

In March 2024, Drapatyi was appointed commander of the Odesa Operational Strategic Group (OSG), whose responsibilities extend from Transnistria to Zaporizhzhia region. In February 2024, President Volodymyr Zelensky appointed Drapatyi as Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Military Training. Drapatyi headed the Odesa Operational Strategic Group for some time, and arrived in Kyiv only in the spring.

6

On the night of May 10, 2024, Russian troops crossed the border into the Kharkiv region simultaneously in several places. Within a week, they captured about 10 villages and entered Vovchansk. The soldiers of some Ukrainian brigades left their positions, some gave battle. The head of the Operational-Tactical Group (OTG) "Kharkiv" Yuriy Halushkin lost control of the situation, so on May 11, 2024, Oleksandr Syrsky sent Mykhailo Drapatyi to the Kharkiv region.

Babelʼs interlocutor in OTG says that no one slept in the first four days. The main task was to stabilize the situation: to start the headquarters, to establish a system of intelligence, surveillance and fire destruction. This way, the Russians were stopped, and in some places they made some progress.

The Russians threw large forces into the Kharkiv region: they were well-trained paratroopers, mobilized soldiers, and convicts.

“They simply filled the front with convicts. We killed a bunch of their soldiers there,” says Babel’s interlocutor. There were no reserves to completely recapture the territories in the Kharkiv region at that time.

“But they partially transferred the war to Russian territory,” says the interlocutor.

In the summer of 2024, the situation began to deteriorate along the entire front line. It became especially critical at the end of the summer in the area of Chasiv Yar and in the area of New York and Toretsk: the Russians were able to break through the defense there, which the Armed Forces of Ukraine had held for almost 10 years.

The Operational-Tactical Group “Luhansk” is responsible for this section of the front, which was then led by Colonel Yevhen Ledovyi.

“He never had experience in commanding either a battalion or a brigade, so he could not cope with the group. This was also felt in the way he set tasks and how he communicated with brigade commanders,” says one of Ledovyi’s former subordinates.

“When Mykhailo Vasilyovych arrived, everything fell into place, as it had been before Ledovyi,” says Babel’s interlocutor. Drapatyi studied the team, found out if anyone needed to be changed, reinforced all areas of the OTU’s work with new people, and organized the work. He remained the deputy chief of the General Staff and had more opportunities than other leaders.

“We received more ammunition, new weapons systems. This had a [good] effect on the combat capability and motivation of the brigades,” says Babel’s interlocutor.

The big problem that Mykhailo Drapatyi struggled with was lying in reports. Battalion and brigade commanders did not always tell the truth to the senior leader about the situation on the front line, especially if some positions could not be held. Drapatyi and his staff began to fight this. He called general meetings at which he asked for an honest report on the situation, without any punishments or official investigations.

The only thing they did was to analyze the reasons why the soldiers left their positions and correct the mistakes. Drapatyi often traveled to the positions and to the brigade and battalion commanders. In a month and a half, he achieved that the commanders gave him truthful information.

The rapid advance of Russian troops was halted. In early October 2024, the president awarded Mykhailo Drapatyi the rank of Major General.

7

In the fall of 2024, the situation on the entire front became critical. Foreign media and Ukrainian journalists began to write that the front was crumbling, military experts and Western partners began to speak. There were many complaints against the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine — primarily about personnel decisions and the lack of systematic analysis of errors.

The military criticized the work of the Land Forces Command as a whole, as well as, separately, for scandals with the TRC, which is subordinate to the "land forces". So, at the end of November, President Volodymyr Zelensky made several high-profile appointments.

Mykhailo Drapatyi became the commander of the Ground Forces. The commander of the 95th Brigade Oleh Apostol became the deputy chief of the General Staff. The commander of the 93rd Brigade Pavlo Palisa became the deputy head of the Presidentʼs Office.

The President appointed Drapatyi as Commander of the Ground Forces on November 29, 2024. There are two versions of how this happened. Member of the parliamentary defense committee Serhiy Rakhmanin claims that Volodymyr Zelensky made this decision and put Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky before the fact.

However, according to two independent sources of Babel, it was Syrsky who advised the President to appoint Drapatyi to this position. Before that, Volodymyr Zelensky considered him as a candidate for the position of Commander of the Joint Forces or Chief of the General Staff.

At that time, Mykhailo Drapatyi commanded the Luhansk OTG and had a reputation as a combat general who stabilized the most difficult sections of the front. Drapatyi had almost no experience in non-combat positions.

Now he was to command the Ground Forces, a logistics structure that should develop this type of troops: train personnel, introduce new technologies, manage mobilization (including the Central Command and Joint Forces). It has a different scale, and the principles of management differ from those of the headquarters.

Zelensky noted that Drapatyiʼs main task was to increase the combat capability of the army. He was to improve the quality of training of military personnel and introduce new approaches to managing people.

On December 13, Drapatyi presented a plan for the Land Forces reforms. It was supposed to change approaches to recruiting and military training, digitalize bureaucratic processes (the Land Forces introduced electronic document management), change management, logistics, and social support for the military.

Drapatyi also promised to reform training centers and train recruits in a new way.

However, Drapatyi did not have time to fully implement the reform. Already on January 26, 2025, the president returned him to the front, he appointed him commander of the “Khortytsia” OSG. As several interlocutors told Babel, many persuaded Zelensky to return the combat general to the war. By that time, Russian troops had approached Pokrovsk. The main task of the new commander was to stabilize the Pokrovsk direction.

At one time, Oleksandr Syrsky was criticized for simultaneously holding two positions — commander of the Ground Forces and commander of the “Khortytsia” OSG — and not having time to manage both commands.

“This mistake was repeated. One person cannot be responsible for a large part of the front and reform such a colossus as the Ground Forces Command,” says Babel’s interlocutor.

8

In February-March 2025, after Mykhailo Drapatyi began to command the “Khortytsia” OSG, the situation in the Pokrovsk direction was temporarily stabilized. But in mid-May, the Russians began to advance again — they bypassed the city from the flanks.

“The front sagged in some areas, including because Drapatyi was not allowed to fully change the command headquarters of individual OTGs,” says a source familiar with the situation for Babel.

This is confirmed by two more independent sources:

“Drapatyi tried to change the commanders of some OTGs in order to fulfill one of the main tasks, but the commander-in-chief [Olexander Syrsky] did not agree to the dismissal. He believed that it was not necessary.”

While Drapatyi was leading the fighting, he was temporarily replaced in the Land Forces Command by the Chief of Staff of the Command, Brigadier General Oleksandr Hruzevych — he was appointed by Oleksandr Syrsky, and he was considered “Syrsky’s man”. General Oleksandr Nesterenko remained as Deputy Commander of the Land Forces.

“If Nesterenko remains, it means that Syrsky does not allow him to be dismissed,” an interlocutor in the General Staff told Babel.

Mykhailo Drapatyi managed to appoint the people he needed to some of the positions in the Command of the "land transport". The training direction was to be headed by an experienced officer — Colonel Oleh Mykolaychuk. All interlocutors of Babel call Colonel Mykolaychuk a strong and professional officer. It was he who "pulled out" the 155th brigade after the scandal, when more than 1 700 fighters left the military unit without permission.

"He retrained the brigade as much as he could," says the interlocutor of Babel.

Mykhailo Drapatyi also managed to change the head of the personnel department: all personnel decisions, including the appointment of heads of the TRC, went through him. Babel’s interlocutors say that the previous head delayed the dismissal of civilian advisors to Lieutenant General Oleksandr Pavlyuk (the previous head of the “dry road”) and sabotaged important appointments.

Oleksandr Syrsky’s entourage accused Mykhailo Drapatyi of dismissing the Command’s expert advisor on gender issues (she transferred to work at the General Staff). Oleksandr Syrsky’s entourage also began to believe that Drapatyi had started a political career and was monitoring his own rating. Several independent sources for Babel claim that Syrsky told the president about this.

9

On March 1, 2025, the Russians fired on the 239th training center in the Dnipropetrovsk region. An enemy drone “hovered” over the area of interest and adjusted an “Iskander” ballistic missile with a cluster warhead. At that time, the official number of victims was not named, but journalist Yuriy Butusov stated that 130 servicemen were injured in the shelling, 30 of whom died.

Drapatyi reacted sharply. He launched an internal audit with the participation of military counterintelligence and promised to punish those who worked negligently or formally. Commander-in-Chief Syrsky also appointed his own audit.

Based on its results, he dismissed the commander of the Air Command "East" Ivan Trebukha and the then head of the 239th training center. Drapatyi also received a reprimand from the commander-in-chief. Syrsky also issued a number of recommendations, but, according to people in his entourage, the Ground Forces Command did not implement them.

In defense of Mykhailo Drapatyi, the interlocutors of Babel gave the following arguments. Mykhailo Drapatyi followed Syrsky’s recommendations and issued a number of instructions: on the construction of shelters, organization of alerts, interaction with the Air Force Command, dispersal of personnel, control over the fact that during the alarm all fighters went down to shelters.

At that time, he was already leading the fighting in the “Khortytsia” military unit. The acting commander of the Ground Forces was General Oleksandr Hruzevych, and he was supposed to monitor the implementation of the instructions. In addition to him, the Training Command, the commander of the Operational Command “East”, the commander of the training center and the servicemen in the center itself, who are responsible for the personnel, were responsible.

On the morning of June 1, 2025, an “Iskander” missile with a warhead again flew into the same 239th training center. The strike killed 13 soldiers and injured almost 70 more. On the same day, Drapatiy wrote a report on his dismissal and announced this on social networks. He explained that he had failed to ensure that his orders were carried out.

“I did not pressure, did not convince, did not change the attitude towards a person in the ranks. Circular responsibility and impunity are poison for the army,” he wrote.

Drapatyi was outraged by the fact that the scenario of this attack was the same as the first: a drone was on duty over the area of interest, adjusting targets. Some of his subordinates ignored his instructions.

“The fact that there are dead people there indicates that people were not in shelters,” says an interlocutor in the Command. The Command began an internal check and initiated an investigation into the incident at the State Bureau of Investigation.

The General Staff perceived Drapatyiʼs decision "as a move to the opposition". They were outraged that Drapatyi did not inform the president, but wrote about his report on social networks.

On June 3, Mykhailo Drapatyi, together with Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky and Chief of the General Staff Andriy Hnatov, was received by the president. As a result of the conversation, Drapatyi received a new position — Commander of the Joint Forces. In fact, it was the same resignation that he requested. Mykhailo Drapatyi served as Commander of the Joint Forces for less than half a year.

10

According to NATO standards, it is the Joint Forces (JF) Command that should lead the war. In fact, the area of responsibility of the Joint Forces Command was determined by Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky.

Initially, he placed the front line in Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk regions in the area of responsibility of the Joint Forces Command. Sumy, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions remained outside Drapatyiʼs area of responsibility. In October 2025, Syrsky narrowed Drapatyiʼs area of responsibility to Kharkiv region and adjacent territories.

Formally, he created a new grouping of troops — the Joint Forces Group (JFG). Drapatyi was subordinate to five corps, which included many undermanned brigades without commanders and without entire units. Drapatyi established communication between the corps, solved the problems of the brigades and overcame excessive bureaucracy.

The brigades and corps were subordinate to the General Staff, the Land Forces Command, the Operational Command and the Joint Forces Group simultaneously. All of them gave direct orders to the commanders.

Drapatyi, as before, had to deal with commanders who were afraid to report on the loss of positions.

“The commanders lied because they were afraid of Syrsky. They said: ʼIf I tell the truth, they will remove meʼ,” a serviceman from the JF Group tells Babel. That is why Drapatyi paid great attention to digitalization.

“Thanks to this, we began to see inconsistencies and problems on the front line, studied the reasons and reported to the General Staff,” says Babel’s interlocutor.

Often the problem was that there were not enough people or they were exhausted. When in late 2025 the Russians advanced in the Kupyansk area and announced that they had captured the city, the Joint Forces Group formed a tactical group that repelled the Russian attacks. The president even recorded a video near the stele with the name of the city. But to hold the liberated territory, people were needed, and the Russians intensified their attacks on Kupyansk.

At this time, the General Staff began to withdraw units from the Joint Forces Group and transfer them to other directions.

“We were told: ʼFight with what you haveʼ,” says the interlocutor, adding that at that time all the reinforcements went to the assault regiments. Despite everything, the positions were held, but the Russians were not allowed into Kupyansk.

The silent conflict between Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky and Commander of the Joint Forces Group Mykhailo Drapatyi intensified with the arrival of Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. With his appointment, rumors spread that Fedorov wanted to replace the Commander-in-Chief and appoint Drapaty in his place.

Fedorov never confirmed these rumors and did not talk about problems with the General Staff in conversations with journalists (until the last press conference after his resignation). However, over the past four months, eight inspections have been sent from Kyiv to the Joint Forces Group.

“An inspection comes, and finds nothing, and returns, and they send us another one. If they find some trifle, they immediately reprimand,” says Babel’s interlocutor. Thus, Drapatyi received three reprimands, which Mykhailo Fedorov spoke about at the last press conference.

Despite the fact that Syrsky regularly came to the Kharkiv region and met with corps commanders, over the past year he has never met with Mykhailo Drapatyi. Drapatyi asked him for a personal meeting because he wanted to expand the staff of the Joint Forces Command, but Syrsky never scheduled this meeting.

During his positions in the JF Command and JF Group, Drapatyi did not give a single interview and wrote almost no posts. There was only one in January of this year — in support of the former head of SBU Vasyl Malyuk. He wrote another post after the president dismissed Mykhailo Fedorov. In it, Drapatyi wrote that the army needs changes and justice.

11

In his new position, Mykhailo Drapatyi will have to change the army.

“As commander-in-chief, he must rebuild the entire management system of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and bring order there, and for this he will need an experienced team with strategic thinking,” a former high-ranking official of the Ministry of Defense tells Babel. He adds that it will not be easy.

The task of the commander-in-chief is to determine strategy, plan defense, and generate troops. He must find a worthy candidate for the position of commander of the Joint Forces and give him the authority to wage war. He must also give tasks to the Commands of all types of troops to prepare troops and send them to the JF Command.

But it is not yet clear whether Drapatyi will choose this path and whether he will have enough strength to reformat the management system.

Several interlocutors of Babel among the officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine noted that much will depend on the team that Drapatyi will choose. It is already known that the new Chief of the General Staff will be the former commander of the airborne assault troops Ihor Skybyuk.

He has good relations with Drapatyi, and the interviewed high-ranking military officers consider his appointment to be progress. It is together with Skybyuk that Drapatyi will determine how Ukraine can defeat Russia.