This is Ukraininan Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi .. you may have heard of him before.

The Kupyansk operation was largely conceived, planned, and continues to be executed by one of Ukraine’s most talented officers — the commander of the Joint Forces grouping, the legendary Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi. He has been conducting this operation without additional reserves, relying solely on existing forces and assets against Russian troops that significantly outnumber Ukrainian forces in almost every component on the ground.

Drapatyi was urgently redeployed to Kharkiv Oblast in May 2024 to halt a Russian breakthrough from the Vovchansk direction, a task he successfully accomplished. He also commanded the liberation of Kherson Oblast in 2022. Notably, he once chose to resign following a tragic training-ground incident, taking personal responsibility for the failure of his subordinates to carry out his orders.

Drapatyi became a legend of his time following the iconic 2014 footage, when pro-Russian separatists established control over Mariupol and blocked the advance of Ukrainian forces. During that episode, two BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles from a Ukrainian unit broke through the artificial obstacles — the commander of the lead vehicle was Mykhailo Drapatyi himself.

In June 2014, Drapatyi also successfully led an operation to extract and save two Ukrainian groups that had been taken captive near Luhansk.