KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — At lunchtime on a quiet Sunday, an olive green off-roader with the insignia of Ukraine’s airborne forces draws up outside the military’s media hub in the near the war front city of Kramatorsk some 530 kilometers southeast of Kyiv.
Out of it comes an armed trooper in full combat gear, and then a tall, well-built officer with a short military haircut, dressed in a simple pixel camouflage uniform.
He is Lieutenant General Mykhailo Zabrodskiy, commander of Ukraine’s military operations in the Donbas, replacing Lieutenant General Oleksandr Lokota.
Zabrodskiy gave the Kyiv Post his first interview since his appointment on Nov. 12. Despite his promotion, Zabrodskyiy remains the commander of Ukraine’s airborne forces, and at 44, is among the youngest of the country’s top officers.
His handshake is strong, and his manner brisk.
“All right, let’s get this done,” Zabrodskiy says, entering the building. Even though it’s a weekend, the general has little time to spare — 20 minutes. He skips the usual formalities of greeting and says “Cut to the chase, please.”
Although tough-looking and stern, Zabrodskiy exudes the confidence of a combat veteran. His exploits in Russia’s war have already made him a hero to many Ukrainians.
Western methods
Zabrodskiy personifies the new generation of Ukrainian commanders, distinguished on the battlefield, and as far from the stereotypical old, overweight and out-of-shape Soviet-era general as it gets.
He also knows his enemy very well.
Born in the eastern industrial city of Dnipro, with nearly 1 million people, he attended military school in St. Petersburg, and later served for five years as a contract officer in the Russian army in the 1990s. In 2000, he returned to Ukraine and joined the 95th Airborne Brigade, one of the country’s most prestigious forces.
There, he was given a rare chance to study Western approaches to war. As a talented young mid-ranking officer, he was accepted for training at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
In the United States, he learned methods of airborne warfare that he would later put into practice when fighting for the Ukrainian armed forces.
“A whole method of planning and sustaining air-assault operations was developed (in the United States) after World War II,” Zabrodskiy says. “There are a lot of things that everyone has a general idea about, but when the moment comes, not everyone knows exactly what has to be done, and in what order.”
“But when it comes to the U. S. Army, all these things can be learned from the appropriate instructions, recommendations and field service manuals. Sometimes their maturity and detail are simply awesome.”
After his training in the United States, Zabrodskiy went on to distinguish himself as the commander of Ukraine’s peacekeeping contingent in Kosovo.
The great raid
By the time Russia’s launched its war against Ukraine, Zabrodskiy had already been promoted to the command of the 95th Airborne Brigade. At that time, the unit was among the few in the armed forces capable of defending the country, so it was thrown into battle from the very start.
Zabrodskiy won fame from an operation later dubbed “Zabrodskiy’s Raid.” As hostilities raged in July-August 2014, he picked 400 of his best soldiers and marched them 470 kilometers through the war zone, between the cities of Slovyansk and Mariupol, and further north along the Russian-Ukrainian border.
As they went, the paratroopers broke the encirclement of at least 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers and 250 vehicles by militant forces and regular Russian units.
Zabrodskiy’s daring sortie is one of the most successful of the war so far. Philip Karber, the president of the Potomac Foundation, a U.S. national security policy think tank, has described the raid as one of the longest and most effective land-based combat sorties in modern military history.
For this operation, Zabrodskiy on Aug. 23, 2014 was awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine. The next day, he led the march of war veterans during the Independence Day parade in central Kyiv.
Later, in early 2015, he was appointed to the command of the entire airborne branch. He soon started enhancing and reforming his forces.
Newfound power
The first thing Zabrodskiy did was to give his fighting force more punch. In the early days of the war, his fighters had badly missed supporting fire from tanks and artillery.
“We got new combat units that we could only ever dream about before,” Zabrodskiy said. “Primarily this includes artillery; their numbers and power have been boosted immensely. Armored units were also added — after firefights on the ground, we understood that without tanks, things could be really desperate.”
Lieutenant General Mykhailo Zabrodskiy (Ministry of Defense of Ukraine)
In July 2015 Ukraine’s state-owned defense industry concern UkrOboronProm supplied a batch of renovated T‑80BV main battle tanks to some of the airborne brigades. Another batch of renovated tanks, which were initially put in service in 1985, was supplied in July 2017. According to the concern’s officials, despite their age, the T‑80s were the best possible option, as their gas-turbine engines are more powerful than those of the army’s workhorse, the T‑64.
“At the early stage of the hostilities, we, unfortunately, had no such machines,” Zabrodskiy said. “So we very often had to fulfill combat missions in cooperation with army tank units or even individual vehicles.”
In all, five of Ukraine’s seven airborne brigades have been augmented with tank companies, according to presidential aide Yuriy Biriukov. Besides that, according to Zabrodskiy, his soldiers can now deploy surveillance drones, and have improved capabilities in minesweeping and erecting fortifications.
Sweeping changes
With their new capabilities, Ukraine’s paratroopers, previously known as the Highly Mobile Airborne Forces, had their name changed to the Air Assault Forces to reflect their status as elite assault troops.
“From the viewpoint of warfare science, the (new) name defines what we do now in a more accurate way,” Zabrodskiy said.
The new name also makes redundant the Soviet-era acronym “VDV” (for “airborne forces” in Russian) that used to be applied to independent Ukraine’s airborne forces.
Also gone are two other features inherited from the Red Army — sky-blue berets and blue-and-white striped sailors’ vests. Instead, the force now wears Western-style uniforms, including maroon berets, like those first worn by British paratroopers in 1942.
In addition, the Archangel Michael, the commander of the heavenly host in the Christian tradition, has been made the patron saint of Ukraine’s airborne forces. Thus, the paratroopers also have a new professional holiday on the saint’s day, Nov. 21, instead of the Soviet-era date of Aug. 2, which is still loudly and drunkenly celebrated in Russia.
Future force
Training has also been overhauled: the old, Soviet mass training methods for a huge conscript force have been replaced with more specialized training suitable for the challenges the airborne forces are expected to meet in future.
“World practice shows that if a soldier has received the appropriate individual training, combat team-building becomes much easier,” Zabrodskiy said. “And during large-scale drills we always try to put a commander into situations he could face in actual combat, considering the specifics of the hostilities in Ukraine’s east.”
“Primarily, this means lowering the level of decision-making: a company or a battalion commander assesses the situation himself, and makes a decision on the ground.”
For Zabrodskiy, the United States army, with its developed and long practice of airborne warfare, is still the gold standard for Ukraine. But considering the enemy uses similar weapons and vehicles, Ukraine could even adopt some Russian army practices, Zabrodskiy said.
“We’re trying to get all the best features from everyone, for our benefit,” he said.
New approach
As soon as he took command of the war zone, Zabrodskiy started to reorganize the defense of the Donbas — again by following the Western example of simplification, and reducing unnecessary barriers between a commander and a soldier.
Earlier, the nearly 500-kilometer frontline had been split into three zones, centered around the cities of Mariupol, Donetsk and Luhansk.
But with practically his first order, the new commander abolished the Donetsk section, dividing it between its neighboring sectors. The whole war zone is now controlled by only two centers in a typical Western-style approach, using a simplified command structure.
“The fewer levels of management there are, the better the responsiveness to commands is,” Zabrodskiy said.
“If the situation allows a link in command chain to be omitted, it normally has a positive effect on command.”
But Zabrodskiy is cautious about drawing any quick conclusions about the progress made by Ukraine’s armed forces, and the war is far from over.
“Quite a few things have been done, with a lot of blood, sweat and nerves,” the general says. “But there’s still much more to do.”
