Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appointed Lieutenant General Ruslan Khomchak as the new chief of the general staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces.
The decree was published on the presidential website on May 21 evening.
The previous top military leader, General of the Army Viktor Muzhenko, who had served in the post since 2014, was therefore dismissed.
General Khomchak, 51, is primarily known as the person in charge of Ukraine’s forces during the Battle of Ilovaisk in August 2014 against combined separatist and regular Russian forces in Donbas.
He started his military career as a cadet at the Moscow Higher Military Command School and continued to serve with the Soviet Army contingent in East Germany later in Soviet Belarus.
As an officer in Ukraine’s military, he served as a chief executive officer of the 24th Mechanized Infantry Brigade based in Yavoriv in Lviv Oblast, then headed the 300th Mechanized Infantry Regiment in Chernivtsi, and the 72nd Mechanized Infantry Brigade based in Bila Tserkva.
From 2009 he served as a chief executive officer of the 8th Army Corps.
With the beginning of Russia’s war against Ukraine in Donbas, Khomchak, with the rank of Lieutenant General, became the commander of Sector B group of Ukraine’s troops in charge of the conflict zone west of Donetsk city.
His combat leadership in the summer of 2014 was marked with a number of controversies and conflicts with Ukrainian volunteer formations, particularly with the Aidar Battalion, which accused the general of refusing to issue firearms and munitions for the battalion’s troops and giving an order banning Aidar from being engaged in active combat.
The general, however, dismissed these allegations by asserting that he was only arming personnel willing to officially join the military formations under his command and was not legally entitled to issue firearms to non-incorporated irregulars.
During the Battle of Ilovaisk, General Khomchak was in charge of nearly 1,400-1,700 troops surrounded by overwhelming Russian regular forces and local militants in the area.
A destroyed tank is seen on the road to Ilovaisk, 50 kilometers east of Donetsk on Sept. 3, 2014. (AFP)
After a failed attempt to break through the encirclement on Aug. 29, 2014, General Khomchak was to lead a Ukrainian military convoy withdrawing from the death trap in Ilovaisk through a corridor negotiated with the enemy. But during the withdrawal, the Ukrainian troops were attacked and slaughtered by the Russian regular army in contravention of the agreement.
As a result of the disaster, Ukraine lost at least 366 men killed, 429 injured, and nearly 300 taken prisoner, according to the official investigation into the massacre.
General Khomchak, with several dozen troops , reportedly managed to battle his way through the entrapment.
Following the battle, in September 2014, he vocally noted that his troops had been fighting against regular Russian airborne and motorized infantry battalion groups in Ilovaisk.
“It was Russian forces who were controlling Ilovaisk,” he said.
“With my own eyes I was witnessing Russia’s formations between August 24 and 28 (in 2014). As early as on August 24, we had already had the first firefight against them near the villages of Mnogopillya and Agrarne, which is to the east of Ilovaisk.”
Starting from 2016, General Khomchak served as Chief of Staff of the Ground Forces of Ukraine.
Notably, the Zelenskiy team shortly after the runoff election on April 21 pledged to declassify all the details about the disastrous battles of Ilovaisk and Debaltseve of 2014-2015, as well as about the beginning of Russia’s war in Donbas and Russia’s invasion of Crimea.
“In the nearest time, people will get to know the truth,” as Zelenskiy’s defense and security adviser Ivan Aparshyn asserted on April 22.
“Nobody is going to hide anything from anyone. And officials who made decisions or were idle where actions were needed will be held responsible.”
