Valery Fedorovich Zaluzhny
Brief biography
Valeriy Fedorovych Zaluzhny (born July 8, 1973, Novohrad-Volynskyi, now Zvyagel Zhytomyr Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, USSR) is a Ukrainian military commander, general. Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (since July 27, 2021), member of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (since July 28, 2021).
Commander of the troops of Operational Command “North” (2019-2021), Chief of the Joint Operational Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine — First Deputy Commander of the Joint Forces (2018), Chief of Staff — First Deputy Commander of the Troops of Operational Command “West” (2017). Commander of the 51st separate mechanized brigade (2009-2012).
On May 23, 2022, he was included in the list of the 100 most influential people of 2022 according to Time magazine[2][3].
In October 2022, he was included in the list of the 25 most influential Ukrainian military from NV.
Military ranks
Lieutenant Colonel (2010);
Major General (August 23, 2017)
Lieutenant General (August 24, 2021)
General (March 4, 2022)
Awards
Cross of Military Merit (May 6, 2022) — for outstanding personal services in the defense of state sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, selfless service to the Ukrainian people and fidelity to the military oath;
Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky III degree (December 12, 2016) — for personal courage, selflessness and high professionalism shown in defense of state sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, loyalty to the military oath;
Award “Name Firearm” (July 26, 2023) — for outstanding personal services in the protection of state sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, strengthening the defense capability of the Ukrainian state, exemplary performance of military duty, honor and valor;
Honorary badge of the Chief of General Staff “For Valorous Military Service to the Motherland”;
Award of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine “Veteran of Military Service”;
Honorary badge of the Chief of General Staff “For Merit to the Armed Forces of Ukraine”;
Honorary badge of the Chief of the General Staff “For Achievements in Military Service”;
Badge “Participant of the ATO”;
All-Ukrainian Literary and Artistic Award named after Brothers Bohdan and Levka Lepkykh (2022) — for the creation of a combat-ready army and effective defense and liberation of the occupied territories of Ukraine from the Moscow invaders;
Order of the Holy Great Martyr Yuri the Victor (December 21, 2022);
Knight’s honorary distinction “Order of Victory” (2022);
Honorary Citizen of Jaworów (2023).
Family
Married, has two daughters. The older one is a servicewoman. The younger one plans to become a doctor
Resonance cases
According to an interview provided to The Washington Post, in 2019, Valery Zaluzhny was detained at the airport of Brussels, where he arrived to participate in the NATO summit. The occasion was the announcement of his international wanted list at the request of the Russian Federation. During the detention by Interpol representatives, he managed to call the Ukrainian ambassador to NATO, who subsequently resolved the situation.
On November 15, 2022 Valeriy Zaluzhny received 1 million US dollars by inheritance from Grigory Stepants. On January 5, 2023, General Zaluzhny transferred the inheritance to a special account of the National Bank of Ukraine to collect funds for the needs of the AFU.
Life Description
Valeriy Fedorovych Zaluzhny was born on July 8, 1973 in Zvyagel (formerly Novohrad-Volynsk) in a family of servicemen. He was brought up in the garrison and from childhood dreamed of becoming a military man and following in his father’s footsteps.
In 1989 Valery graduated from the city school № 9, and entered Novograd-Volynsk machine-building technical school, which successfully graduated in 1993 with honors.
After graduating from the machine-building technical school Valery decided to devote himself to the military and subsequently entered the general military faculty of the Odessa Institute of Land Forces. And in 1997, having graduated with honors from the Institute, he began to pass all stages of military service starting from platoon commander.
In 2005 he joined the National Defense Academy of Ukraine, and 2 years later in 2007 he graduated from it with a gold medal and received a new appointment as Chief of Staff — First Deputy Commander of the 24th separate mechanized brigade in Yavoriv, Lviv region, and later was appointed commander of this brigade.
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Military career
Later, in 2009, Valery Zaluzhny was appointed commander of the 51st separate mechanized brigade and held this post until 2012.
After some time, Valery again enters a higher educational institution, namely the Ivan Chernyakhovsky National University of Defense of Ukraine and successfully graduated in 2014. As the best graduate of the operational-strategic level of training, he was awarded the transition sword of the Queen of Great Britain.
During the ATO in eastern Ukraine, in July 2014, Valery Zaluzhny was appointed deputy commander of Sector “C”, which was formed in Donetsk region. Since then, he has been in charge of almost all the groups created there.
After some time, namely in 2017, Valery Fedorovich was appointed to a new position — chief of staff — first deputy commander of the troops of Operational Command “West” and in the same year he was awarded a new rank — major general.
For him, each new post was not a goal, but only a tool to achieve the real goal — the development of the Ukrainian army. And this can be clearly seen in the improvement of the AFU during the entire time of the war in Donbass. This is the time during which a new generation of Ukrainian military grew up in Ukraine, who studied together with NATO forces at European training grounds to then apply their knowledge at the front.
Colleagues and subordinates about Valery spoke only on the best side, always respected in the army for the human attitude to his subordinates, openness, sincerity and bravery.
In 2018, he became head of the Joint Operational Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine as the first deputy commander of the Joint Forces. And on December 9, 2019 — was appointed commander of the Operational Command “North”.
Also at this time, Valeriy Zaluzhny again enrolls in higher education, this time at the Ostrog Academy, and successfully graduates in December 2020 with a degree in International Relations.
Appointment as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
The following year, namely on July 27, 2021, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky appointed Valeriy Zaluzhny as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and the next day he was inducted into the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. Valeriy Zaluzhny replaced Ruslan Khomchak on this post.
Valeriy Zaluzhny is a representative of Ukrainian senior officers who never served in the Soviet army and never studied in its educational institutions, so the “Soviet” military model is quite alien to Zaluzhny. As a participant of military operations in eastern Ukraine, he has a positive attitude toward the renewal of personnel by young people and the departure from Soviet practices. One of his first steps as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces was to allow the military at the front to return fire on the occupants without consulting the top leadership and depriving the military of the need to fill out unnecessary documents.
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Reforms in the army
Regarding his priorities as Commander-in-Chief, Valeriy Zaluzhny said: “The general course of reforming the Armed Forces of Ukraine in accordance with NATO principles and standards remains irreversible. And the key thing here is principles. Changes should occur, first of all, in the world outlook and attitude to people. I would like you to turn your face to people, to your subordinates. My attitude to people has not changed throughout my service.
Zaluzhny’s appointment was part of a large-scale reform of the Ukrainian army following major changes in the Defense Ministry and restructuring of the military command.
From his first days as Commander-in-Chief, Zaluzhny struggled with the insane bureaucracy that existed in our army. Actually on the third day after the president signed the decree, he arrived in the East, gathered all the commanders and ordered them to leave only combat documents.
“I gave such a command to the commanders of military units to remove all papers. Therefore, to say that who artificially creates this “paper” army, there is no longer. Here I am, as commander-in-chief, I say: I ordered to remove,” he stated in an interview with Radio Liberty.
He also emphasized that since then he has been working on the introduction of an automated management system and scaling up the electronic document flow.
Also, Zaluzhny, as well as most of his colleagues, understood the threat of a full-scale invasion by gore-neighbors since 2014. Therefore, they used this time to establish cooperation with NATO and build a new flexible model of warfare, where small units can think and act independently without waiting for orders from above.
Military analysts believe that this helped paralyze the formation of the occupiers at the beginning of the full-scale war and forced the highest ranks of the Russian army to go to the front, where some put their heads in the Ukrainian soil.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine
From the first day of the full-scale invasion to this day, Valery Fedorovich has played one of the most important roles in the defense of our country. While Putin hoped for a quick surrender of Ukraine, Zaluzhny built a strategy that allowed our country to withstand a powerful blow from Russia.
On March 4, 2022 Valery Zaluzhny was awarded a new rank — General, and today Valery Fedorovich Zaluzhny together with his colleagues, subordinates, brothers and in general with the Armed Forces of Ukraine performs his work to protect the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
