Meet Ukraine's national hero...at war with the country where he was born

THE FRONTLINE is my life, declares General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the man whose battlefield skills could determine the result of Ukraine’s brutal ongoing war with Russia.

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Like the bravest military leaders, he is prepared to lead by example and to share the dangers of the men under his command.

It is no surprise that Syrskyi, appointed as Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces seven months ago, feels comfortable in the trenches, even if sometimes they are located less than a mile from the enemy.

He has, after all, not simply been fighting Russians since the all-out war began in February 2022, but has been confronting the illegal acts of Ukraine’s neighbouring power for more than a decade.

In the West it is sometimes forgotten that in February and March 2014, Russia illegally invaded the Crimean Peninsula, part of Ukraine, and then annexed it.

Soon afterwards, Russia also expanded its military influence into parts of the Donbas and Luhansk regions.

During a recent interview with Christiane Amanpour for CNN, the General was asked about his relationship with his soldiers.

“We speak the same language. We understand each other no matter who I am talking to, whether it is an ordinary soldier, a rifleman, a brigade commander or a battalion commander,” he replied.

But who is this four-star general in whom President Zelensky has entrusted not just his own future, but arguably the future of the entire nation?

What are his characteristics? How close is his relationship with the President? How and why did he mastermind the daring incursion into Russia just weeks ago?

Like every politician and military leader in Ukraine, or indeed elsewhere, Syrskyi has his critics as well as his supporters.

He has been called the “Meat General” and the “butcher of Bakhmut”. But are such labels fair? To answer those questions and many more, I spoke to some of those who know him best.