Defence minister signs decree appointing Pavlo Yelizarov as Deputy Air Force Commander

Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has signed an order appointing Pavlo "Lazar" Yelizarov as Deputy Commander of the Air Force of Ukraine, responsible for the development of short-range air defence.

Source: Fedorov on social media

Quote: "We are strengthening the protection of Ukraine's skies – I have signed an order appointing one of the most effective commanders, Lazar, as Deputy Commander of the Air Force of Ukraine, responsible for the development of short-range air defence."

Details: According to Fedorov, no country in the world has experience countering air attacks comparable to Ukraine's. He reiterated that in 2025 Russia launched up to 100,000 Shahed attack drones and other types of UAVs at Ukraine, damaging dozens of critical infrastructure facilities, causing hundreds of hits on residential buildings and resulting in casualties, while the number of attacks continues to grow.

Fedorov noted that, on the president's instructions, the approach to protecting the skies is being changed to counter Russian attacks. "Transforming such a system does not happen in a matter of days, but we need to start today in order to ultimately resolve this issue," the minister said.

He added that their task is to build an anti-drone shield over Ukraine – a system that does not react after the target flies by, but destroys the threat while it is still approaching.

"For this, we need people who have already proven their effectiveness in modern warfare. Lazar is one of them. Under his command, the Lazar's Group unit became one of the most effective within the defence forces. It was this team that destroyed enemy equipment worth more than US$13 billion," the defence minister recalled.

The task now, Fedorov said, is to scale up this experience – to build a system that works not in isolated cases, but across the entire country.

"It is difficult to transform the army when the enemy strikes every day. But we have no choice. We must change our approaches, structures and logic of work so that technologies truly operate on the battlefield, rather than remain in presentations. The result will not come tomorrow, but we are building the system today. The anti-drone shield is not about the future. It is about survival today and Ukraine's ability to develop even during wartime," Fedorov wrote.

Fedorov also announced that further personnel appointments would follow soon.

Background: Pavlo Yelizarov was included in the UP 100 list for 2025 as one of the leaders in the Defenders category.

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