ColonelBiography
Zhytnyak spent 17 years with the 92nd Mechanized Brigade—now the 92nd Assault Brigade—rising to Chief of Staff before taking command of the 17th Tank Brigade in 2020. When Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022, he was at the helm of that unit, leading it through the grinding Kherson offensive that fall.
By August 2023, Zhytnyak had shifted to a different kind of battlefield: recruitment. He became acting head of the Kharkiv Territorial Recruitment Center, a role formalized the following month.
