How rivalry with a top general brought down Ukraine’s popular defence minister Fedorov
France 24 · LC · trust 49/100
The forced resignation of Ukraine's 35-year-old defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov in a sweeping government reshuffle on Wednesday has exposed competing visions within the country’s civil and military leadership on how best to hold back the Russian advance.
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As thousands of Ukrainians took to the streets across the country on Thursday to protest President Volodymyr Zelensky ’s abrupt – and largely unexplained – decision not to reappoint popular defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov in a sweeping government overhaul, the man himself held a press conference in Kyiv to launch an unusually public attack against the person he held responsible for his forced resignation: Oleksandr Syrsky, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces.
Standing in front of a slick black slide deck showing Ukrainian drones sweeping across the battlefield, the 35-year-old Fedorov told reporters that the nation’s top general had been systematically thwarting his efforts to implement much-needed reforms within the armed forces.
"Instead of figuring out how to defeat Russia asymmetrically – which is the commander-in-chief's task – he figured out how to split the country ," he said, dressed in his trademark tech-bro T-shirt and jeans.
"In this configuration, I personally don't know how to win the war."
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Zelensky appears to have made his choice. Fedorov had been in his post for just six months.
Speaking to reporters, the Ukrainian president said that the two men had barely been able to be in the same room together.
"A president in wartime should not have to choose in such a situation, honestly," he said. He insisted that Fedorov, who earlier said he had rejected an offer by the president to stay on in an advisory role, would remain part of his team.
Lesia Bidochko, a senior lecturer at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, said the rift between the two men lays bare a fundamental disagreement on how to continue the fight against Russia as Moscow’s invasion grinds into its fifth year.
“It’s a broader tension over how to manage a prolonged war,” she said. “As a commander-in-chief and four-star general, Syrsky approaches the problem through the lens of operational command and battlefield realities, where immediate military requirements, force generation and combat effectiveness take priority.”
“Fedorov, an effective and highly modern manager, seemed to treat many military challenges as organisational and managerial problems that could be solved by changing incentives and accelerating decision-making,” she said.
“He focused on procurement reform, defence innovation and digitalisation.”
Service members of the Sparta company of the 422nd Unmanned Systems Regiment "Luftwaffe" of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, prepare a Zozulia mid-strike drone for flight in an undisclosed location in Southern Ukraine, on an undisclosed date, 2026. © Valentyn Ogirenko, Reuters Among his supporters, Fedorov has become almost synonymous with Ukraine’s successful embrace of rapidly evolving drone warfare to hold back the much larger Russian military .
Long a close ally of the president – dating back to when Zelensky was a popular TV comedian – Fedorov was a 28-year-old marketing specialist when he oversaw a successful 2019 social media blitz that helped Zelensky win the presidency. Zelensky named him digital transformation minister upon taking office.
During his time at the new ministry, the ambitious tech enthusiast led the overhaul of Ukraine’s ageing bureaucracy with the rollout of a smartphone app that allowed people to more easily access essential state services. He became an ardent advocate of drone procurement and production, and forged close relationships with US tech magnates including SpaceX’s Elon Musk and Palantir ’s Alex Karp.
Maria Engqvist, an analyst and director of the Swedish Defence Research Agency’s Russia and Eurasia Studies Programme, said that Fedorov fought to bring that same modernising fervour to the armed forces when he was named defence minister in January.
“His transition to the military realm as minister of defence faced some initial critique, since his visions of transformation relied heavily on drone and cyber warfare – partially as an answer to manpower shortages, and the question of Ukraine’s allegedly critical demographic situation.”
Ukrainians gather to denounce President Volodymyr Zelensky's decision to dismiss defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov after six months in the post, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, July 16, 2026. © Danylo Antoniuk, AP But she said that Fedorov’s single-minded focus on digital dominance has not always been well-received by the embattled nation’s top brass.
“The problem is that drones and code cannot regain and control physical territory, which to my understanding remains a strategic priority for the Ukrainian leadership,” Engqvist said. “This requires manpower and munitions – which are both in shortage.”
Syrsky cuts a very different figure. Born in Russia before the collapse of the Soviet Union , the 60-year-old trained at the Moscow Higher Military Command School before going on to serve in the Soviet Artillery Corps.
His critics have accused him of remaining too attached to that era’s heavily centralised command structures, and of pursuing tactical gains at the high cost of soldiers' lives.
Syrsky’s overseeing of the bloody nine-month defence of Bakhmut , where both sides suffered devastating losses before Kyiv was forced to abandoned the ravaged city,…
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