Exclusive: Inside the mind of a 35-year-old brigade commander

Col. Dmytro Kapitula, 35, commands Ukraine's 46th Separate Airmobile Brigade and holds all three classes of the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky for operations at Yatskivka, Klishchiivka, and the Kupiansk axis. During a two-hour interview in Kramatorsk, he described a 2023 battle where a stuck Ukrainian battalion broke a Russian-held crossroads by maneuvering through gardens rather than relying solely on suppressive fire.

Kapitula served with the 95th Brigade before 2014 and says the war exposed persistent shortages in long-range artillery, armored vehicles, and modern equipment that he believes were only partially addressed before accelerating after the 2022 full-scale invasion. He credits much of that modernization to commanders, soldiers, and civilian engineers innovating faster than the institutional system could respond, including early improvised drone weaponization.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.