Oleksandr Syrskyi

Oleksandr Syrskyi is a Ukrainian general (as of 2025) in the Russo-Ukrainian war. He has served as the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine since 8 February 2024 replacing Valerii Zaluzhnyi in this position.

His father was sent to Kharkiv, Ukraine, to serve in the Soviet Armed Forces in 1980, when Syrskyi was fifteen years old. After completing his high school education in Kharkiv, Syrskyi enrolled in the most esteemed military academy in the Soviet Union, the Moscow Higher Military Command School. Syrskyi joined the Soviet Artillery Corps in 1986 after graduating. He began his career with a self-propelled artillery unit that was outfitted with 203 mm 2S7 Pion and 152 mm 2S5 Giatsint-S self-propelled howitzers, as well as units designated to launch nuclear shells. Afterwards, he was part of Rocket Artillery units that flew the BM-27 Uragan MBRL. He served until the Soviet Union's disintegration in 1991 in Afghanistan, the Tajik SSR, and Czechoslovakia.