Oleksandr Syrskyj was appointed commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army on February 9. Dmitry Medvedev called the 58-year-old a "Bandera traitor" who had "broken his oath" The Russian ex-president breathes the Putin spirit of Great Russian nationalism onto the new army chief.
Syrkyj served in the artillery of the Soviet Army for five years. He is ethnic Russian and has lived in Ukraine since the 1980s.