KYIV, July 21 — The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine remains, on paper, the central military staff responsible for operational management of the country’s armed forces. The mechanics here are straightforward: it operates under the Ministry of Defence, and the chief of the General Staff is appointed by the president, who serves as supreme commander-in-chief. But on closer reading, the chain of command has undergone a quiet structural shift that matters.
On 28 March 2020, the position of commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was formally separated from that of the chief of the General Staff. The catch is that this split, designed to create clearer lines between operational command and administrative staff work, now means two distinct officers hold what were once unified powers.
As of the latest verifiable snapshot — August 2025 — the chief of the General Staff is Major General Andrii Hnatov, while the commander-in-chief is General Oleksandr Syrskyi. The General Staff was created in 1991–1992 on the bones of the former Soviet Armed Forces’ Kyiv Military District headquarters. That lineage still shows.
Its organization includes a commander-in-chief, a chief of the General Staff, a joint operations staff, and a series of numbered directorates: personnel (J-1), operations (J-3), logistics (J-4), defense planning (J-5), communications (J-6), training (J-7), and medical affairs (J-8). Then there are directorates for special operations, military cooperation, and peacekeeping.
Past directorates have included Euro-Atlantic Integration, Garrison Service, and Military Symbols and Heraldry — evidence of ongoing institutional evolution that sometimes stalls or shifts.
Key appointments, notable vacancies
As of August 2025, the key members list reveals more than just names. Commander-in-Chief General Oleksandr Syrskyi and Chief of the General Staff Major General Andrii Hnatov are the top two. But the positions of Deputy Commander-in-Chief and First Deputy Chief of the General Staff are both listed as vacant.
That is two senior slots unfilled at a time when Ukraine’s military faces sustained pressure. The Assistant Deputy Chiefs are Lieutenant Generals Serhii Naiev and Radion Tymoshenko.
The Command Sergeant Major is Chief Master Sergeant Oleksandr Kosynskyi. Service commanders cover Ground Forces, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Air Assault Forces, and Special Operations Forces — a full slate, with no reported vacancies there. Observer status is granted to the Commander of Territorial Defense Forces, Major General Ihor Plakhuta, meaning his command sits outside the General Staff’s core but is linked to it for coordination purposes.
What the vacancies signal
The empty Deputy Commander-in-Chief and First Deputy Chief slots are worth watching. In any military staff — especially one that emerged from Soviet structures and is now adapting to NATO-standard joint operations — those positions are not ceremonial. The J-5 directorate for defense planning, for instance, reports up through that chain. Without a first deputy, the chief of the General Staff absorbs that workload directly. That can slow decision-making or concentrate too much operational knowledge in one person.
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