Zelensky appoints Kostiantyn Humeniuk as new commander of Ukraine's Medical Forces

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a decree appointing Kostiantyn Humeniuk as commander of the Medical Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, according to a decree published on the website of the Office of the President.

In a separate decree, the president dismissed the previous commander, Anatolii Kazmirchuk, from the post.

Background on the new commander

Humeniuk is a colonel of the medical service, an educator, and holds candidate and doctor of medical sciences degrees. He is an Honored Doctor of Ukraine and a laureate of the Borys Paton National Prize of Ukraine. He served in the Anti-Terrorist Operation zone in May 2014, became the operation's chief surgeon in 2017, and served as chief surgeon of the Joint Forces operation in 2018-2019. Since 2019 he has been chief surgeon of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In May 2022, at a mobile military hospital in a front-line town near Bakhmut, he performed Ukraine's first modern laparoscopic operation to remove a kidney destroyed by a gunshot wound.

The outgoing commander

Kazmirchuk, the dismissed commander, holds the rank of major general of the medical service and is a military doctor, doctor of medical sciences, and professor. He was appointed commander of the Medical Forces by Zelensky on 19 November 2023. Commander-in-Chief Mykhailo Drapatyi submitted a proposal for his dismissal on 4 August. Earlier, in 2024, Kazmirchuk had been transferred to a lower position in another unit following a severe reprimand from command, after Anton Shevchuk, head of the medical service of the 82nd Separate Air Assault Brigade, discovered Chinese-made tourniquets in his brigade in July 2023 and asked the Medical Forces command to replace them.