President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has appointed a new commander of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine – Major General Grigory Galagan. The head of state signed the corresponding decree on Tuesday, August 25.
The appointment took place against the backdrop of a truce in the Donbass. Zelenskiy noted that in the context of the ceasefire, the tasks of the Joint Forces Operation have changed. The new commander was instructed to introduce more aggressive methods of countering emerging challenges and adequately respond to provocations from the enemy.
Galagan replaced Igor Lunev in this post, who was appointed commander of the special operations forces in 2016.
On July 27, additional ceasefire measures came into force in Donbass, which imply a complete ban on firing and placing weapons on the line of contact between the Ukrainian military and the militias of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.
On August 24, the head of the Kiev delegation to the trilateral contact group on Donbass, Leonid Kravchuk, said that due to the decisions of the previous top leadership of Ukraine, it was not possible to prevent a war in the southeast of the country.
Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called on Kiev to stop “fooling everyone” and to fulfill its obligations under the Minsk agreements. The key to establishing peace, he said, will be the constitutional consolidation of the special status of Donbass.
Since 2014, Ukraine has been conducting a military operation against Donbass, whose residents refused to recognize the results of the coup and the new government in Kiev. The settlement issues are being discussed in the Minsk format and at the meetings of the Normandy Four.