Mykhailo Drapatyi: Can new Ukraine army chief alter Russia war’s direction?

Kyiv, Ukraine — Ukrainian Colonel Mykhailo Drapatyi drove an armoured vehicle at breakneck speed through a barricade built by pro-Russian separatists who had just taken over the southeastern city of Mariupol.Another armoured vehicle followed Drapatyi’s to save police officers taken hostage by the separatists in an Interior Ministry building.It was May 9, 2014, and Ukrainian forces were locked in a battle for the country’s east against Russia, its soldiers, militias and local separatists backed by Moscow — a conflict that escalated into a full-blown war after Russia’s 2022 invasion.Several officers and separatists were killed in clashes and shootouts that day, their bodies lying around the building. Crowds of pro-Russian residents rallied nearby, cheering the officers’ deaths.This reporter happened to be close by with a television crew – and barely escaped being clubbed to death by an angry crowd of Moscow sympathisers armed with metal rods.Drapatyi’s drive-through made him an instant YouTube sensation in Ukraine. Weeks later, he led his unit out of a hopeless, lethal encirclement by Russia-backed separatists, losing only one soldier.The now 43-year-old then rose to become the comma...