Dismissal of Ukraine’s defence minister highlights wider issues for Zelenskyy | Ukraine

Volodomyr Zelenskyy’s sudden dismissal of Ukraine’s young and innovative defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, was not the first to reveal a troubling flaw in the president’s leadership, just as Kiev appeared to be gaining advantages in various areas of its war with Russia.

The move, which surprised senior European officials and provoked consternation and demonstrations in Ukraine, is even more shocking given Fedorov’s role in implementing a clear strategy to continue the war by taking advantage of Ukraine’s rapidly developing technological advances in drone and missile technology.

Fedorov, 35 and appointed in January, has been hailed by admirers as he begins to grasp the range of problems plaguing Ukraine’s armed forces, streamlining military procurement and challenging corruption-prone systems, introducing competitive bidding and seeking solutions to the military’s persistent recruitment and training crisis.

Fedorov was also seen as one of the key drivers of Ukraine’s highly effective drone program, which started when he was minister of digital transformation.

A former marketing executive who is close to Zelenskyy and has never served in the military, he has won the admiration of senior military officers for his casual style, freewheeling speeches and insistence on a data-driven approach to reforming Kiev’s war effort.

“We’ll take all the data and see what works,” he said after his appointment. “Whatever goes well will continue.” This included a kill-for-points scheme designed to reward the most effective army units, which some in the military rejected.

Additionally, Fedorov is also credited with convincing Elon Musk. Shutting off unauthorized Russian Starlink access to the battlefield earlier this year was described as a significant advantage by front-line troops.

Born in the year of Ukraine’s independence from Moscow, Fedorov is seen as part of a generation unimpressed by the experience of the Soviet bureaucracy; This is in stark contrast to the country’s 60-year-old chief of staff, Oleksandr Syrski, a graduate of Moscow’s higher military forces. Command school, starting his career as an artillery officer.

In hindsight, the conflict between the two men and their ideas on how to fight the war were inevitable: between an older, old-school general micromanaging a harrowing war of attrition against a larger number of enemies, and Fedorov with his technology-focused, more improvisational approach that has come to fruition in recent months.

While fierce rivalries between key wartime leaders were hardly new, the failure, especially for Fedorov and his supporters, lay in Zelenskyy’s handling of the rivalry, which led Fedorov to call for Syrski’s dismissal.

“When the President said that he did not plan to replace Syrskyi, I said that I would learn to work with him,” Fedorov said at a press conference after his dismissal, and claimed that the general tried to block the defense minister’s initiatives at every opportunity.

“All the initiatives we proposed started to be blocked,” he added. “And he wasn’t ready to discuss personally, face to face, openly, any of the issues we talked about today.

“Instead of finding a way to defeat Russia asymmetrically, which is the commander-in-chief’s duty, he found a way to divide our country,” Fedorov said.

Zelenskyy’s own assessment of the situation was unconvincing at a joint press conference with outgoing British prime minister Keir Starmer on Thursday, as he appeared to complain that he was being asked to “choose between the parties.” [when honestly] “What I want most is unity,” he said.

All of this has led to inevitable suggestions that Zelenskyy and his circle are pushing aside someone seen as a popular and potential future political rival – not for the first time.

“The decision bears all the signs of Zelenskyy’s tendency to dismiss senior officials and commanders who become too popular ahead of hypothetical elections that will never take place if Russia crushes Ukraine,” an editorial in the Kiev Independent wrote.

“Faced to choose between, on the one hand, the man who turned around the war of attrition with technology and smart strategy, and, on the other hand, the man who sabotaged the war with micromanagement and Soviet thinking, Zelenskyy thought about it and chose the latter.”

While the demonstrations over Fedorov’s dismissal continue for a second day, it is now a question mark how long a lasting impact it will have, as the fifth defense minister is due to be appointed in the next few years.

For Zelenskyy, this underscores again the fact that while he was impressive on the global stage and impressive as a wartime figure for Ukraine, he struggled to build and retain a cohesive team of senior officials around him, balancing conflicting interests to ensure continuity of the war effort.

While Russian military bloggers celebrated Fedorov’s ouster, Zelenskyy’s appointment of Yevhen Khmara as interim defense minister suggests that the emphasis on technology and long- and medium-range drone strikes will likely continue despite the feud between Fedorov and Syrski. Khmara is the former head of the state security service’s Alpha unit, which was heavily involved in drone strike operations.

Zelenskyy stated that Khmara wants Fedorov to advance some important reform programs.

But the question many Ukrainians are asking themselves is whether anyone can truly be empowered to be effective in this role.