Following days of protests in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky has sacked Olexander Syrskyi and appointed General Mychajlo Drapatyj to take over as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. The protests started when Zelensky dismissed the popular Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. An obstacle to reformsJOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. This is a victory for the sacked defence minister, comments Corriere della Sera (Italy) : “Upon his departure, Fedorov described Syrski as the biggest obstacle to the reforms that have enabled Ukraine to hit Russia harder. The general wanted more tanks and artillery? The minister pushed for more robots. ... Syrski, born in Moscow in 1965 and trained at Soviet military academies, understood little of the innovations introduced by the young Fedorov, who maintained close ties with American big-tech companies in Silicon Valley. Yet even Zelensky views the minister’s ambitions with suspicion because they threaten to overshadow his own position and public standing.” He also had his merits Political commentator Yurii Bohdanov (Ukraine) pays tribute to the outgoing commander-in-chief on Facebook: “Yes, it was right to fire Oleksandr Stanislavovych [Syrskyi], both politically and as dictated by healthy common sense, because objectively speaking too many crises and problems have accumulated. This has also impacted trust considerably – within the army and between the army and the public. But we should not forget that Syrskyi fought against Russia for twelve years. And yes, we have him to thank for the defence of Kyiv, the Kharkiv counter-offensive and much more besides. This, too, is part of our complex reality.”