Topix Underground

"...Syrskyi's background
Syrskyi was born in 1965 in a small village in Russia's Vladimir region. In the 1980s, he studied at the Moscow Higher Combined Arms Command School.

Syrskyi continued his military education in independent Ukraine, graduated with honors, and started climbing the army’s career ladder.

As of 2013, the last peaceful year in Ukraine, Syrskyi was a major general and a deputy chief of the armed forces' main command center.

He was responsible for Ukraine's military cooperation with NATO and participated in talks on bringing the Ukrainian army closer to the alliance's standards.

When Russia invaded Ukraine's eastern Donbas region in 2014, Syrskyi was appointed as deputy commander of Ukraine’s defensive operation, known as the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO). Three years later, he took over command.

During the first years of Russia’s invasion of eastern Ukraine, Syrskyi played a key role in the battles for the cities of Debaltseve, Vuhlehirsk, and the villages of Ridkodub and Lohvinove in Donetsk Oblast. He coordinated the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the almost encircled Debaltseve in 2015, for which he received the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, a Ukrainian military award.

In August 2019, Syrskyi became the head of Ukraine's Ground Forces, keeping the post when Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine..."