Who is Colonel General Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s new army chief?

Syrsky, who replaces General Valerii Zaluzhny, has been called ‘Snow Leopard’ and ‘Hero of Ukraine’ for his battlefield successes.

Colonel General Oleksandr Syrsky, the man President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has chosen to lead Ukraine’s military, has played a key role in some of the country’s biggest victories in its war with Russia, including overseeing the successful defence of the capital, Kyiv, in the early days of the invasion.

Like most senior officers of his generation, Syrsky was born in Soviet Russia, in July 1965, and studied at a Red Army academy in Moscow.

In the 1980s he was deployed to Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union.

But when the Soviet Union collapsed, he remained in Ukraine, studying at the National Defence University in Kyiv and joining the ranks of the newly independent Ukrainian army.

The choice of Syrsky as commander-in-chief is hardly a surprise because few in the Ukrainian military have the experience and know-how to be able to fill the shoes of his popular predecessor, General Valerii Zaluzhny.