The commander of the Operational Command forces South, Major General Andriy Kovalchuk, announced his resignation from his post and transfer to the field of training military personnel.

"Gentlemen, officers, sergeants, soldiers, employees and workers of the forces of the operational command South. Dear residents of the southern regions of our country. Combat brothers, colleagues, friends. Thank you for your common service. These two and a half years have become a difficult and eventful period in everyone's life of us. I am proud that I had the honor and trust to be your commander, to be the commander of the glorious and wayward South," Kovalchuk said in South Operational Command's Facebook page on Friday.

He said that he would be training military personnel. "With confidence in us and in our strengths, I remain in a single army family, and in the education of young officers I will introduce the same principles and requirements that I have always had and have with me and those I lead: honor, decency, patriotism, responsibility, courage and prudence – from this grows a real commander, capable of being a role model and educating his own fighting team by his own example. This is how a new army of a democratic independent state is formed," Kovalchuk said.

At the same time, he did not specify what position he was being transferred to.