Mykhailo Drapatyi has taken over as Ukraine’s new top military commander, replacing Oleksandr Syrskyi after a huge political row accompanied by street protests. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that medium and long-range strikes against Russia will continue under Drapatyi.
Zelenskyy confirms continuation of strikes
“The operations of the Ukrainian defence forces are ongoing and must continue steadily,” Zelenskyy said. “Ukraine’s plan for long-range sanctions and our programme of middle-range strikes will be carried out with absolute precision.” The announcement came in a late-night TV address.
Zelenskyy offered a “prominent position” to Mykhailo Fedorov, the defence minister he sacked last week in a shock move that brought out protesters who have given a deadline of Friday for Fedorov to be reinstated. Fedorov welcomed Drapatyi’s appointment as a “breath of fresh air” bringing “new hope to the struggle of free people for freedom and justice”.
Tribute to Syrskyi and Drapatyi’s background
Zelenskyy paid tribute to Syrskyi, crediting him with leading the defence of Kyiv and launching a counter-invasion of Russia’s Kursk province. Drapatyi, his replacement, is well regarded within Ukraine’s army and liked by the public. He is viewed as an ally of Fedorov, a tech-savvy moderniser.
A major general, Drapatyi is commander of Ukraine’s joint forces group and has been fighting Russia since its covert attempt in 2014 to take over the eastern Donbas region. He is famed for driving an infantry fighting vehicle over a barricade set up by pro-Russian militants in Mariupol.
Kremlin laments Wildberries attacks
The Kremlin lamented Ukrainian attacks on warehouses of Wildberries – an Amazon-like chain that Kyiv says supplies drone parts and other technologies for the Russian war effort. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “The situation is indeed difficult because of the losses suffered both by the company itself and by representatives of small and medium-sized businesses.”
Fuel crisis in Russia
Russian authorities are taking fuel away from Siberia and giving it to Moscow – Russia’s wealthiest and most populous region, where Vladimir Putin most fears losing the support of the Russian elite. The success of Ukrainian drone attacks on oil refineries, storage and shipping has caused fuel crises of varying degrees across Russia. Traders told Reuters that to replace lost production, gasoline produced in the Urals and Siberia, as well as imported supplies from Belarus, has been redirected to the Moscow region. One of the traders said the Achinsk refinery in Siberia’s Krasnoyarsk region has been supplying Moscow with fuel.
Civilian casualties rise
Civilian injuries and deaths increased by more than a third in Ukraine in the first half of the year, the UN human rights office said. It documented 1,396 deaths and 7,978 injuries in the first six months of 2026, representing a 37% increase from the same period last year and a near doubling versus 2024. Long-range ballistic missiles and drones, and short-range drones and glide bombs drove the escalation.
A Russian guided-bomb attack on the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia killed at least three people on Tuesday and injured more than a dozen, regional officials said. Two of the dead were in their 60s and the other was 49. Seven floors of a nine-storey apartment block were engulfed by flames after the attack, the regional military administration said.
