Ex-Unmanned Systems Forces commander Sukharevskyi to lead Ukraine's Marines, media reports
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Colonel Vadym Sukharevskyi, ex-commander of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, have been chosen as the new head of the country's Marines, several Ukrainian media reported on Oct. 28 citing sources familiar with the matter.
Sukharevskyi will replace Major General Dmytro Deliatytskyi in the job, sources confirmed independently to Ukrainska Pravda and Interfax-Ukraine.
The popular commander had been assigned to lead the pioneering new drone branch of Ukraine's military back in 2024, but was dismissed after less than a year in the job, amid reported disagreements with then-Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi.
Since then, Sukharevskyi has spent over a year in de facto wilderness as deputy commander of Ukraine's Eastern Group of Forces, a temporary command umbrella covering most of the eastern front line.
His return is part of a larger ongoing reshuffle of Ukraine's high command launched by Syrskyi's replacement, Mykhailo Drapatyi, in an effort to distance the military leadership from his predecessor's Soviet-style leadership culture.
Sukharevskyi etched his name in the history of Ukraine's resistance to Russian aggression in April 2014, when, as a senior lieutenant in the 80th Airborne Brigade, he ordered his troops to open fire on Russian proxy forces in Sloviansk, the first shots fired in Ukraine's effort to quash Moscow's fake "separatist" uprising in Donbas.
In the first years of the full-scale war, Sukharevskyi commanded the 59th Motorized Brigade, one of the key units which liberated the city of Kherson from Russian occupation.
Ukraine's Marine Corps — officially part of the country's navy — has traditionally specialized in amphibious warfare, similar to the Russian and U.S. equivalents.
Since the full-scale invasion, Ukrainian Marine brigades have fought in some of the most intense hotspots of the front line, from Mariupol, Pokrovsk, and Kostiantynivka in Donetsk Oblast, to the daring but costly Krynky offensive across the Dnipro River over 2023 and 2024.
