Oleksandr Syrskiy, Ukraine's 60-year-old commander-in-chief, is at the centre of the biggest domestic crisis President Volodymyr Zelensky has faced since Russia's full-scale invasion began, with protesters demanding his removal after a defence minister he clashed with was sacked, exposing deep fractures between Ukraine's Soviet-rooted military command and its reformist defence establishment.
Syrskiy, the general who organised Kyiv's defence in February 2022 and later planned the Kharkiv counteroffensive, now faces calls to resign over heavy battlefield losses in Bakhmut, where he earned the grim nickname 'General 200'.
