Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday appointed commander of the ground forces Oleksandr Syrsky as the country's new army chief, in a dramatic military shakeup nearly two years into Russia's…
Syrskyi was born in 1965 in Vladimir Oblast, Russian SFSR, then in the Soviet Union. He graduated from the Moscow Higher Military Command School, the Soviet Union’s leading higher military educational institution in 1986 and served in the Soviet Artillery Corps.
Syrsky moved to Ukraine in the 1980s. He initially served in a self-propelled artillery unit equipped with the 152 mm 2S5 Giatsint-S and 203 mm 2S7 Pion self propelled howitzers, including in units earmarked to fire nuclear shells. He later served in Rocket Artillery units fielding the BM-27 Uragan MBRL. He served in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and the Czech Republic until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Born in what was then Soviet Russia, Syrskyi graduated from a military academy in Moscow and speaks Ukrainian with a heavy Russian accent.
An ethnic Russian, born East of Moscow, who speaks Ukrainian with a heavy Russian accent, and who's entire military education was centered around Soviet doctrine, is the new commander in chief of the AFU?
An ethnic Russian, born East of Moscow, who speaks Ukrainian with a heavy Russian accent, and who's entire military education was centered around Soviet doctrine, is the new commander in chief of the AFU?