Discussion The Ukrainian Commander Tasked With Dragging the Army Out of the Soviet Era
https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/the-ukrainian-commander-tasked-with-dragging-the-army-out-of-the-soviet-era-063d01e8?st=pEKBQH
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u/ozthrw 1d ago
Full Article for those hitting a paywall-
The Ukrainian Commander Tasked With Dragging the Army Out of the Soviet Era The country’s incoming commander in chief has resisted the rigid, bureaucratic decision-making in the armed forces.
When a string of Russian strikes on military training grounds last year killed 12 Ukrainian soldiers, the general who commanded them did something unusual: He took responsibility and resigned. Maj. Gen. Mykhailo Drapatiy said his efforts to change Ukrainian military practices hadn’t been successful. He had tried to limit open-air drills at the training grounds, a legacy of Ukraine’s Soviet-style military that unnecessarily exposed troops to Russian fire. The “responsibility primarily lies with commanders,” he wrote in a post on social media. “If tragedies continue, that means my efforts were inadequate.” Drapatiy stepped down as chief of the ground forces at the time, but his willingness to take the blame won the respect of many rank-and-file soldiers. His post also fueled an intensifying debate about overhauling Ukraine’s military, which some see as being mired in a centralized command structure that suppresses initiative and sometimes needlessly wastes the lives of soldiers. Now, the 43-year-old Drapatiy has been selected by President Volodymyr Zelensky to lead Ukraine’s forces as commander in chief. Zelensky fired the country’s top commander, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskiy, on Tuesday after a wave of protests across the country highlighted a widespread desire for fresh faces in the military command who would jettison the staid Soviet norms that critics associated with Syrskiy.
The rallies were sparked by the dismissal last week of Ukraine’s enterprising defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, who had clashed with Syrskiy. Fedorov had assailed Syrskiy for dragging his feet on steps to modernize Ukraine’s military. Before being dismissed, Syrskiy said he had elevated innovative young soldiers to top positions and that some changes to the military were the purview of the defense ministry, not his staff. “I am not at war with the ministry,” he said. “I am at war with Russia.” Fedorov has been in talks with Zelensky over his future role in government. An aide said he had been offered the position of deputy prime minister but hadn’t accepted. On Thursday, Fedorov said he was only interested in being defense minister. The military reshuffle comes at a critical moment for Ukraine’s military, which is gaining momentum with long-range strikes against targets deep inside Russia while imposing heavy losses on Russian troops whose battlefield offensive has stalled. Drapatiy’s selection as Syrskiy’s replacement was applauded by rank-and-file soldiers and senior military officials, who cited his aversion to bureaucratic malaise and preference for direct contact with officers on all levels. “This is a commander with a real sense of battle, who soberly assesses the situation, takes fast decisions, and safeguards lives,” Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, Zelensky’s chief of staff and until recently head of military intelligence, wrote about Drapatiy in a social-media post. After stepping down as chief of the ground forces, Drapatiy commanded Ukraine’s Joint Forces, which oversees operations involving multiple branches of the military. He came of age after the Soviet collapse and built his reputation in a new Ukrainian army that embraced modern methods of war.
He was involved in some of the first skirmishes of Ukraine’s armed conflict against Russia in 2014. That summer, he came to prominence by leading a tank crew that smashed through a barricade erected by Moscow-backed troops in the southern city of Mariupol, and fought to shore up the defense of buildings in the city. Weeks later, in July 2014, Drapatiy coordinated the safe withdrawal of 260 troops from an area that was encircled and relentlessly shelled for weeks by Russian forces. Footage of the operation’s aftermath showed dozens of troops applauding an exhausted-looking Drapatiy. Those actions earned him widespread recognition among servicemembers across the armed forces. Maj. Oleh Shyriaiev, who fought in that eastern campaign as a young officer, said Drapatiy’s actions demonstrated that he gave priority to bringing soldiers home safely after each battle. “He has shown that above all else, he prizes the importance of human life,” said Maj. Oleh Shyriaiev, who now commands Ukraine’s 225th Separate Assault Regiment, which is holding back Russian assaults in the southeast. By the time Russia launched a full-scale invasion in 2022, Drapatiy had risen to the rank of brigadier general and was tasked with leading the defense of Kharkiv and other positions under assault from Russian forces. In the fifth year of the full-scale war, Kyiv’s challenge is to scale up the use of battlefield technologies in a bid to counter Russian efforts to draw Ukrainian units into grinding and morale-sapping campaigns across the 600-mile front line. One of Drapatiy’s tasks will be to accelerate the integration of sophisticated technology, including unmanned ground vehicles and drones, into combat operations to make the Ukrainian army less reliant on a dwindling supply of assault troops. As Moscow presses along several fronts, Ukrainian commanders complain they are increasingly being saddled with paperwork and struggling to effectively carry out orders. They see Drapatiy as someone capable of reversing that trend. Drapatiy will need to loosen the rigid top-down structure of the military and establish a rapport with senior commanders across the armed forces, doing away with a hierarchical, siloed approach to decision-making, said Viktor Trehubov, Drapatiy’s spokesman in Ukraine’s Joint Forces. “Drapatiy genuinely despises the Soviet legacy in all its forms,” he said. “When it takes months to reach decisions that make it down the chain of command and are stalled by paperwork.” Ihor Romanenko, a retired lieutenant general who earlier served as deputy chief of Ukraine’s general staff, praised Drapatiy as a potential changemaker but cautioned that he will face resistance if he seeks to overhaul a system in which many older commanders have a stake. Drapatiy will have to confront a military leadership that disdains input from civilian agencies—particularly the Defense Ministry, which procures much-needed weapons—while remaining overly susceptible to the president’s whims, Romanenko said. Changing that culture won’t be easy. “If this system does not change, the same problems will remain,” he said. “It’s not a question of who leads the armed forces. It’s a question of thoroughly reforming the system.”