Volodymyr Zelenskyy has replaced Yuriy Sodol, commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
"I have decided to replace the Commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Lieutenant General Yuriy Sodol, with Brigadier General Andriy Hnatov," the Head of State said.
"I wrote a letter to the State Bureau of Investigation calling for an investigation into a military general who, in my opinion, killed more Ukrainian soldiers than any Russian general... I give a f*** that they judge combatants and brigadiers for the loss of an observation post, but they do not judge a general for the loss of regions and dozens of cities and the loss of thousands of soldiers... This man launches investigations against commanders who advance and do not lose ground, but he does not initiate internal investigations against himself," Krotevych wrote in a Telegram on 23 June.
Who is Andriy Hnatov?
- Marine Hnatov is the commander of the Odesa separate military unit.
- In 2001, he graduated from the Kharkiv Institute of Tank Troops.
- In 2016-2018, he was the Chief of Staff of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade.
- 2018-2021 - Commander of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade named after Rear Admiral Mykhaylo Bilynskyy.
- In 2022, he was appointed Chief of Staff, Deputy Commander of the troops of the Operational Command "South" of the Land Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
- In June 2022, he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general.
- In 2022, Andriy Hnatov was in charge of the defence of Mykolayiv after General Dmytro Marchenko.
- He was one of the commanders of the operation to liberate the Kherson region in November 2022.
- In the spring of 2023, he commanded the defence of Bakhmut. At that time, the city was held by the 93rd Brigade, led by Colonel Pavlo Palisa. The city was part of the area of responsibility of the ,Khortytsia separate military unit, commanded by Oleksandr Syrskyy.
- Andriy Hnatov is one of the officers who formed the renewed marine units from the units that left the occupied Crimea.