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Ukraine’s Ousted Defense Minister Attacks the Military’s Old Guard
Mykhailo Fedorov defended his efforts to modernize the Ukrainian armed forces as thousands of people protested his dismissal.
Ukraine’s ousted defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, issued a fervent defense on Thursday of his efforts to modernize the Ukrainian military and directly attacked the country’s top general as thousands of Ukrainians took to the streets to protest Mr. Fedorov’s dismissal.
At a news conference in Kyiv, the capital, Mr. Fedorov said that he had urged President Volodymyr Zelensky to remove his primary antagonist in the military hierarchy, Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander in chief, but that the president declined.
Mr. Fedorov, who clashed repeatedly with Mr. Syrskyi while championing a high-tech vision of warfare dominated by drones, accused the commander in chief of “blocking all of our initiatives.”
“Instead of figuring out how to defeat Russia asymmetrically,” Mr. Fedorov, 35, said, referring to the drone campaign, Mr. Syrskyi “figured out how to split the country.”
In a social media post, Mr. Syrskyi, 60, did not directly address Mr. Fedorov’s accusations but said that the former defense minister’s news conference had been possible only because of the military’s successes in defending Ukraine. “We need to focus on the war and on an effective strategy that is currently demonstrating concrete results,” Mr. Syrskyi wrote, thanking Mr. Fedorov for his service.
Mr. Zelensky acknowledged the rift that had led to the shake-up and the protests, saying he would have preferred unity.
“In such circumstances, you have to choose one side or the other,” he said at a news conference alongside Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain, who was visiting Kyiv.
Ukrainians rallied in cities across the country to demand a reversal of Mr. Fedorov’s dismissal just six months into his tenure. The protesters were dismayed that Mr. Zelensky had ousted his defense minister just as many military analysts said the war had turned in Ukraine’s favor. The shift is more marked than any since the conflict’s first months, when Russia endured a series of defeats.
The demonstrations were only the second large street protests in Ukraine during more than four years of war. Rallies also took place last year, against a move by Mr. Zelensky to neuter anticorruption agencies.
On Thursday, protesters poured into a square in central Kyiv. They turned out in Odesa, in the south, and in Lviv, in the west. In the frontline city of Kharkiv, in the northeast, more than 300 protesters with cardboard signs crowded sidewalks, chanting “Shame, shame, shame!” Their numbers grew as the morning wore on.
“Hands off Fedorov!” one sign read. “Why break what’s working?” read another.
Mr. Fedorov is a prominent proponent of the use of unmanned systems in the war. He had come to symbolize Ukraine’s success in using long-range drones to strike military and oil industry targets inside Russia and to wage an intense campaign to cut off occupied Crimea.
Many protesters expressed despair over his removal, seeing it as a victory for an old guard inside the military that had disagreed with Mr. Fedorov’s vision for the future of war. Variations of “Fedorov is innovation, old grandpas are degeneration” appeared on many of the cardboard signs.
Mr. Fedorov had also angered well-connected defense contractors with programs threatening their businesses, such as one that allowed soldiers to buy their own weapons on a military website.
In his remarks on Thursday, Mr. Fedorov acknowledged the anger on the streets.
“Today we see that the Ukrainian people have taken a stand,” he said, adding, “Why is it that now, when hopes have emerged and the initiative has been seized, this trajectory is breaking?”
At the protest in Kharkiv, Maria Chaplihina, 12, stood quietly with her grandfather, holding a sign that read “Bring Back Fedorov.” It was her first time protesting, Maria said. Most of her friends were home, she added, but she felt it was important to come out and make her feelings known.
Winning the war is the most important thing, she said, and Mr. Fedorov had been doing great work.
“Our president wants to overthrow him because he’s doing a good job,” she said. “People don’t like it, and neither do I.”
“We want the president to hear us,” she added, as her grandfather looked on, proud of her English and her civic sensibility. “We need to speak.”
The call for Thursday’s street protests came from Dmytro Koziatynsky, a war veteran who in July orchestrated the demonstrations against Mr. Zelensky’s crackdown on anticorruption agencies.
Those demonstrations, known as the “cardboard protests” for their hastily drawn signs, ultimately led Mr. Zelensky to reverse course.
On Thursday, at least 1,000 people gathered in the square in central Kyiv, at a spot within earshot of Mr. Zelensky’s office on Bankova Street. The crowd of mostly young people stamped their feet, waving signs and demanding the resignation of Mr. Syrskyi, the commander in chief.
“I really worry about what is happening now,” said Andriy Fedun, 54, a retired psychologist.
He said he previously supported Mr. Zelensky, admiring the president’s diplomacy in rallying the world to Ukraine’s side, but believed that firing a popular defense minister just as the war turned in Ukraine’s favor was a mistake.
“The Russians dream of our having internal problems,” he said. “Why remove him now?”
As images of demonstrations ricocheted across social media, Mr. Zelensky called them a sign of a healthy system.
“We are fighting for freedom and democracy, so it seems to me that we are doing everything right,” he said during his news conference with Mr. Starmer, since “we can ensure that even during wartime, with all the difficulties and restrictions, people are able to express their will.”
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