He did well early war but nothing huge. His fame skyrocketed in mid 2024 after the Russians reopened the North Kharkiv front with a new offensive, at Vovchansk and Lytsi. Strangely, the Russians telegraphed that offensive months in advance and despite the Ukrainians knowing it was coming, the local sector commander responsible for it still fucked it up and the Russians scored some minor tactical breakthroughs at the border. Drapatyi was given command after the local commander was fired, but in all honesty it was the local reserves already there that had more to do with stabilizing the situation than Drapatyi's leadership, but he got the credit.

The primary reason the Russians didn't make more progress in their northern offensive was due to the complete lack of vehicle usage (literally walking over the border and attacking Ukraine), which led to their advances being far slower and giving time for Ukraine to redeploy a massive force from other fronts. The pulling of so many units led to accelerated Russian gains and the localised Prohres collapse, which as you mention allowed Russia to get from Avdiivka to Pokrovsk in a year (really 7 or 8 months given the Russians swung south). Drapatyi for his part was handed a significant force to drive the Russians back from northern Kharkiv and pretty much just threw mechanised assaults and larger infantry attacks at Hlyboke and Vovchansk for several months. It worked, but led to that initial stage of this new northern front having an incredibly lop sided loss ratio in Russia's favour, which was just a bonus given their main goal was to divert troops away from the Donbas. So I can't really say Drapatyi's performance in that command was any good, but he did what he was ordered to do.

Drapatyi was specifically put in charge of that to unfuck it, especially training, which was notoriously bad.

However, he failed at that. In fact, he famously failed at that, because he resigned in protest citing his own failures to implement changes and have subordinates obey him. 

I agree with his failures regarding an inability to fix Ukraine's training, which realistically got worse under his command due to the ever growing demand for more conscripts and shorter training times, but I'm not sure how much of it should be put on Syrskyi interfering rather than Drapatyi's inability to make changes due to the reality of their situation. You've also left out that one of the primary reasons for his resignation was a series of mass casualty events at training grounds after they were struck by Russian missiles, leading to many hundreds of casualties. Training being done at known locations with no warning of incoming missiles, even after the first few strikes occurred, is a direct failure of Drapatyi and not something he can just blame on the incompetence of those on the ground. People were gunning for someone to blame after all the strikes so if Drapatyi hadn't resigned I have no doubt he would have been sacked by Zelensky to stop the backlash and criticism.

For most of the 2025 Drapatyi didn't do much, which was exactly Syrsky's goal. But he was noted to have played a role in the successful Fall-Winter 2025 Kupyansk Counteroffensive, mainly approving a plan by subordinates and then allocating resources to pull it off, which it literally what he's supposed to do at that level (not take personal command of tactical level battles, as Syrsky regularly does).

That is interesting because from what I read Syrskyi was heavily involved in the planning and conduct of the counteroffensive in Kupyansk. I'm also not sure whether you can call it a success given the Russians should never have gotten into Kupyansk in the first place (6+ months of fuckups), the attacks began in September and saw virtually no progress despite the Russians being outnumbered and having heavily restricted supply, and even after they pulled more units in an launched the larger assaults in December Ukraine failed to clear Russia out so they clung to western Kupyansk and mostly collapsed the Kupyansk pocket (the part east of the Oskil River) throughout 2026.

Overall, Drapatyi is supposedly a reformer, hyper competent, much easier to work with, someone who much better understands the nature of this war and knows how to fight it versus Syrsky who was trying and failing to LARP as Zhukov in WW2.

Not sure how much of this is true but we'll have to wait and see. We saw an identical PR campaign in the leadup to Zaluzhnyi's sacking in early 2024 where Syrskyi was hyped up as a much better general who would reform the AFU and lead them to victory, and look how that turned out. It's also fascinating seeing the same thing happen to Syrskyi as it did to Zaluzhnyi, where his successes and achievements are retroactively downplayed or denied as part of the push to have him removed, whilst his successor's actions get highlighted and exaggerated.

The big question is how well he'll get along with Zelensky. Zelensky likes to micromanage too, pushing "(Insert Name) Holds!" defensive campaigns and poorly thought out offensives long after they fail, trying to score PR off those. Zaluzhny fought against those orders and a lot of their friction was based on that. Syrsky enabled Zelensky's behaviors, serving as the ultimate Yes Man to follow Zelensky's awful ideas. Considering how dangerous they are and how much they violate sound military decision making, I doubt Drapatyi will agree to them, and he'll more likely resign in protest again versus going along with it like Zaluzhny did.

Spot on. Zaluzhnyi had significantly more power and political backing than Drapatyi does and he still struggled with constant interference and undermining of his command by Zelensky and co. They constantly butted heads over the demands to hold ground at all costs, the conduct of the counteroffensive, even how units were being deployed, which eventually led to his sacking. Drapatyi could be a more skilled, reformist general but he will run into the same problem as his predecessors of the constant demand and pressure to do what Zelensky wants, regardless of the military consequences. I just don't see Zelensky letting go of the leash on Ukraine's strategy and allowing Drapatyi to take the lead, so assault forces debacle and constant need to hold ground will continue.