The President appointed Gennady Shapovalov as the new Commander of the Land Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy appointed Gennady Shapovalov as the new commander of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The relevant decree made public on the website of the Office of the President.
Prior to his appointment, Shapovalov held the post of commander of the Southern Operational Command, from which he resigned in February 2025. In March 2022, he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. In January 2025, the president announced the appointment of Shapovalov to work with international partners in Wiesbaden to coordinate security assistance to Ukraine.
Gennady Shapovalov was born in 1978 in the Kirovohrad region. In 2000, he graduated with honors from the Institute of Tank Troops at the Kharkiv State Polytechnic University, and in 2012 from the Command and Staff Institute of the Use of Troops (Forces) of the National Defense University of Ukraine, also with honors. His career spans the path from the commander of a tank platoon to the head of a separate motorized infantry brigade named after Yakov Handziuk. He received the rank of brigadier general in March 2022.
It will be recalled that on June 1, Russian troops launched a missile attack on a training unit of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. As a result of the attack, at least 12 people died, and more than 60 were injured.
On the same day, the then commander of the Ground Forces, Mykhailo Drapaty, submitted a report for dismissal, noting that as a commander he was unable to fully ensure the execution of his orders. Later it became known that he remains in the Armed Forces. On June 3, Zelenskyi appointed Drapaty as the commander of the joint forces, noting that in the future he will focus exclusively on combat tasks.
