Major General Ihor Skybiuk will become the new Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Wednesday, July 22, completing a major overhaul of Ukraine’s military leadership. Zelensky said the decision was made together with Ukraine’s newly appointed Commander-in-Chief Mykhailo Drapaty and acting defense minister Yevhen Khmara, adding that Skybiuk is an “experienced military officer.”JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. “Together with Mykhailo Drapaty and Yevhen Khmara, we decided that the new Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be Major General Ihor Skybiuk – a very experienced military officer who, together with the new Commander-in-Chief, defended Ukraine shoulder to shoulder,” Zelensky wrote on social media. The appointment comes amid a major wartime military leadership overhaul, triggered by Mykhailo Fedorov’s July 15 dismissal as defense minister, a move that triggered protests and sharpened debate over the future of Ukraine’s military modernization. Skybiuk, who has served as deputy chief of the General Staff since 2025, previously commanded Ukraine’s Air Assault Forces. In 2022, he led the 80th Separate Air Assault Brigade during the Kharkiv counteroffensive, which helped liberate Izium. Hours earlier, late Tuesday, July 21, Zelensky dismissed Oleksandr Syrsky as AFU commander-in-chief and appointed 43-year-old Drapaty as his replacement.On Monday, July 20, former SBU Special Forces chief Yevhen Khmara took over Ukraine’s Defense Ministry following Zelensky’s decision four days earlier to appoint him as acting defense minister following the ouster of reformist Mykhailo Fedorov.