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Ukraine has installed a new top military leader amid ongoing conflict with Russia, with 43-year-old Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi taking over the role of Commander-in-Chief from Oleksandr Syrskyi. This appointment marks the third leadership shake-up for Ukraine’s armed forces since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, and it has already earned broad backing from both civilian society and rank-and-file military personnel. Drapatyi’s rise to the top position came amid public protests that initially formed to support his ally, former defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov, but eventually shifted to demand Syrskyi’s removal – with crowds chanting Drapatyi’s name in the streets. One frontline Ukrainian soldier told the BBC, “There’s no better person for this position nowadays in Ukraine.”

Drapatyi’s reputation as a “humane and strong” commander has been built over more than two decades of military service in post-Soviet Ukraine. He graduated from the Kharkiv Institute of Tank Troops in 2004, beginning his career as a junior lieutenant, and first rose to public attention in 2014, when pro-Russian separatists seized swathes of eastern Ukraine. That May, Drapatyi led a battalion into the besieged southern city of Mariupol to free hostages held at the city’s police department. When told a kilometer-high makeshift barricade blocked the advance, he ordered his infantry fighting vehicle to smash straight through it, and the footage of the maneuver quickly went viral around the world. “I said, let’s take it by storm. This video flew around the world,” he later recalled in an interview. Later that same year, he earned further acclaim for successfully extracting encircled Ukrainian units from a contested border area in Luhansk Oblast.

In 2021, Drapatyi returned to academic training to deepen his expertise in operational and military strategy, graduating at the top of his class that June. He was awarded a ceremonial sword of honor by then-British Ambassador to Ukraine Melinda Simmons for his performance. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, Drapatyi was already serving as deputy commander of Ukraine’s joint forces, and he immediately stepped into frontline leadership roles. He led temporary operational task forces across multiple hotly contested sectors of the front, successfully halting Russian advances toward Kryvyi Rih and overseeing the liberation of dozens of settlements in the Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk regions. By 2024, he had risen to command Ukraine’s entire Land Forces, leading operations in some of the bloodiest combat zones in eastern Ukraine.

A defining moment for Drapatyi’s public reputation came in early 2025, when a Russian missile strike targeted a military training ground in the Dnipropetrovsk region, killing 12 soldiers and wounding 60 more. Drapatyi tendered his resignation that same day, taking personal responsibility for the “conspiracy of silence and impunity” that he said had allowed the tragedy to occur. “An army in which commanders bear personal responsibility for the lives of personnel keeps living. An army in which nobody is responsible for a loss dies,” he wrote in his resignation letter. The move was widely praised as an unprecedented demonstration of accountability among Ukraine’s senior military leadership, and President Volodymyr Zelensky declined to accept his resignation – instead appointing him commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

From that point, open speculation about tensions between Drapatyi and Syrskyi grew steadily. A senior unnamed Ukrainian officer told local media in June 2025: “Drapatyi is a relatively young general. He is gifted. He was always sent to places where the situation was extremely difficult. I do not think he has political ambitions. Yet I am sure his ambitions are not confined to the position of commander of the ground forces or the Joint Forces.” Just over a year later, Syrskyi stepped down, and expectations for Drapatyi’s tenure are running high.

Mykola Bielieskov, a senior analyst at Ukrainian NGO Come Back Alive, notes that Drapatyi enjoys widespread popularity among rank-and-file troops, particularly among civilian volunteers who joined the military after the 2022 full-scale invasion. But Bielieskov also cautions that the new commander-in-chief will operate under severe, systemic constraints: “The Commander-in-Chief has a lot of leverage. But war is a combination of government, the president’s office, military suppliers, dependence on [Western] partners… so he’s got a tricky path before him.”

Ceasefire negotiations with Russia remain stalled with no near-term breakthrough in sight, and Ukraine is bracing for another harsh winter of active combat. Drapatyi’s immediate priorities include shoring up Ukraine’s mobilization system to replenish frontline ranks, rooting out systemic corruption that has plagued everything from conscription processes to defense procurement, and leveraging Ukraine’s fast-growing domestic defense tech sector – which has driven key battlefield gains in recent months – to maximum effect.

In his first public address after taking up his new post, Drapatyi acknowledged the enormous weight of his new role, promising to lead “without making loud promises, with responsibility for our decisions, and with respect” for all frontline service members. Many Ukrainians are hoping Drapatyi will bring a sharp break from Syrskyi’s tenure, which was widely criticized for relying on outdated, human-costly offensive tactics that prioritized territorial gains at the expense of troop safety.

Analysts have warned against overestimating how quickly Drapatyi can deliver change, however. “It’s a major role and people will expect change quickly,” Bielieskov said, cautioning against “oversimplification” that can lead to unrealistic demands for sweeping progress in an impossibly short timeline. Oleksiy Kopytko, a former interior ministry adviser, echoed that note of caution, pointing to the fickle nature of public support for senior wartime leaders: “As commander-in-chief, you are worshipped and loved by all today, not loved by everyone tomorrow, and are guilty of everything the day after tomorrow, with none of your achievements mattering.” Valery Zaluzhnyi, who was removed from the post of Commander-in-Chief in 2024, also predicted that “Drapatyi will have a very difficult time. Much harder than he imagines.”

Even so, many ordinary Ukrainians and frontline soldiers share a palpable sense of optimism about the new leadership. Some have gone so far as to say that if Drapatyi’s ally Mykhailo Fedorov is reinstated as defense minister, the pair’s combined leadership would become “Russia’s worst nightmare.” Long before taking on the role of Commander-in-Chief, Drapatyi signaled his willingness to take on entrenched problems within the military: when he resigned from his Land Forces command in 2025, he outlined a series of systemic flaws he had already targeted, ranging from combat training reform to unfair mobilization practices, corruption and broken procurement systems. “There is expected resistance, but efforts need to be stepped up,” he said at the time. Now, he will face those same challenges on a far larger national stage, with the eyes of the entire country fixed on his every move.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — In an official clarification Wednesday, the Holy See has confirmed that the canonical trial of high-profile former Jesuit priest Marko Ivan Rupnik — accused of widespread spiritual, sexual and psychological abuse against multiple women — remains actively underway, pushing back against recent Italian media reports that an acquittal had already been issued. The Vatican also defended the strict secrecy surrounding the proceedings, framing it as a necessary guardrail to protect the integrity of the church’s internal judicial process.

Rupnik, a renowned Slovenian artist whose mosaic works adorn Vatican chapels and major Catholic basilicas across the globe, first became the center of a global clerical abuse scandal in late 2022, when multiple women and nuns came forward with abuse allegations dating back to the 1990s. The claims detailed decades of alleged dismissal of their complaints by senior Catholic leaders, a revelation that sparked intense criticism of the Vatican’s handling of adult abuse cases and drew questions about whether senior church officials, including Pope Francis, had shielded Rupnik due to his celebrity status within the church.

The case has emerged as one of the most sensitive abuse matters facing the Holy See amid the global #MeToo reckoning over clergy misconduct. Church records show Rupnik was briefly excommunicated in 2020 after being found guilty of one of the Catholic Church’s most severe offenses: using the sacrament of confession to absolve a woman he had been sexually involved with. The Jesuit order expelled Rupnik from its ranks in 2023, following growing public pressure over the allegations.

For months after the scandal went public, the Vatican declined to prosecute additional abuse claims from other women, citing the age of the allegations and noting that all the accusers were adults at the time of the reported abuse — a distinction rooted in longstanding Vatican policy that only classifies sexual abuse of adults as a criminal offense under church law if the victim is deemed incapable of rational consent. Facing mounting backlash over claims that the church had protected Rupnik, Pope Francis waived the church’s statute of limitations on the older allegations earlier this year, clearing the way for a full canonical trial to proceed. Rupnik retains his status as a priest, and his supporters have repeatedly denied all wrongdoing, dismissing the accusations as unproven defamation and what they have called a media “lynching.”

Recent speculation over the case’s outcome was triggered by an Italian blog report Monday claiming judges had already issued an acquittal verdict. That report prompted a harsh rebuke from Laura Sgro, the attorney representing five of Rupnik’s accusers, who issued a scathing condemnation of the Vatican’s secretive canonical legal system. In an open letter Tuesday to the head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith — the body overseeing the trial — Sgro said her team had received no response to two years of requests for basic updates on the case’s progress. She added that the unconfirmed acquittal report had left her clients deeply discouraged and shaken, particularly since none of the accusers have ever been interviewed by the tribunal about their claims.

In its Wednesday statement, the Vatican press office dismissed the blog’s acquittal report as “totally unfounded,” noting that judges are still in the process of reviewing evidence submitted by participating dioceses, the Jesuit order, the parties involved and public media reports. The Holy See defended its policy of confidentiality, arguing that withholding information during proceedings is required to protect the integrity of the process and prevent unnecessary harm to all individuals involved. The statement added that if the judicial panel requires additional evidence to reach a ruling, it will take proactive steps to obtain it, a comment that left open the possibility that accusers may still be called to testify.

Responding to Sgro’s complaints about the lack of transparency — a standard expectation in public civil and criminal courts — the Vatican noted that canonical trials only address internal church matters governed by canon law, and are not intended to replace external civil or criminal judicial processes. Under the current structure of canonical abuse investigations, accusers are only classified as third-party witnesses, rather than active parties to the case. They are barred from attending secret proceedings, denied access to case files, and have no inherent right to be notified that an investigation has even been opened, let alone receive regular updates on its status. A 2019 reform by Pope Francis only grants victims the right to receive the final verdict once it is issued, with no other access to procedural information.

Notably, the church’s canonical system has drawn repeated condemnation from independent international abuse investigations, which have consistently found that the culture of secrecy and lack of basic procedural rights for victims retraumatizes survivors. Critics point out that canon law was never designed to address the needs of abuse survivors or support their healing; the core purpose of the system is centered on protecting the institutional church, with stated goals of restoring internal order, reforming the offender and managing public scandal. Accused priests also face limited procedural protections in canonical trials, and have long raised their own concerns about secrecy and the absence of the due process rights guaranteed in public court systems.