Ukraine appoints Konstantin Humeniuk as new Medical Forces commander

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a decree appointing Konstantin Humeniuk as commander of the Medical Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. A previous decree removed Anatoliy Kazmirchuk from that position.

Who is the new commander

Humeniuk is a colonel of the medical service, an academic, and holds both a candidate and doctoral degree in medical science. He is a Merited Doctor of Ukraine and a laureate of the Borys Paton National Prize. He served in the Anti-Terrorist Operation zone in May 2014, became chief surgeon of that operation in 2017, and chief surgeon of the Joint Forces operation in 2018-2019. Since 2019 he has served as chief surgeon of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In May 2022, at a military mobile hospital in a frontline town near Bakhmut, he performed Ukraine's first modern laparoscopic surgery to remove a kidney destroyed by a gunshot wound.

Background on the change

Commander-in-Chief Mykhailo Drapatyi submitted a request on August 4 to dismiss Kazmirchuk from the Medical Forces command. Kazmirchuk holds the rank of major general of the medical service and is a military doctor, doctor of medical science and professor; he was appointed to the post by Zelensky on November 19, 2023. In 2024, after Medical Forces command issued a severe reprimand to Anton Shevchuk, head of the medical service of the 82nd separate air assault brigade — who in July 2023 had discovered Chinese-made tourniquets in his brigade and requested they be replaced — Shevchuk was transferred to a lower position in another unit.