Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is facing rare public protests and pressure after firing his popular technocratic defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov.
Fedorov’s firing came as part of a surprise government reshuffle, which removed Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko after less than a year in office. Fedorov had held his position for an even shorter period of time, roughly six months, but he made a name for himself as an energetic reformer and advocate for an entrepreneurial focus on drone production and warfare.
Zelensky neglected to explain why he fired Fedorov but stressed that he would stay on his team. Fedorov doesn’t seem so sure, however, and said on Thursday that he rejected an offer to stay in the government in an advisory role.
Worsening the situation for Zelensky, Fedorov decided not to go down without a fight. The now-former defense minister held a press conference in his favored style of a Steve Jobs-style presentation, presenting his vision of modern warfare, drone technology, and trashing army leadership and bureaucracy.
The president’s failure to provide a clear reason for Fedorov’s firing fed the growing speculation, especially as Fedorov was widely viewed as successful in the position, particularly by the Western press. Explanations as to why he was fired have varied widely from the defense minister allegedly being too corrupt, not corrupt enough, too combative with army leadership, too showy, too popular, and too in the clouds on military matters.
Clashing philosophies
The main current that appears to be behind the firing is his not-so-subtle conflict with Armed Forces of Ukraine Commander in Chief Oleksandr Syrsky. Syrsky is known as a more traditional commander, and his reforms have focused on forming new infantry assault groups and procuring traditional weapons. Fedorov has pushed for the opposite, aiming to replace much of the military with drones to make up for casualties.
In other words, Syrsky takes a manpower-first approach to warfare, while Fedorov takes a technology-first approach to warfare. With limited resources to contend with, the differing philosophies inevitably clashed and created a situation where Zelensky had to choose between the two.
Fedorov and Syrsky’s leadership styles also clashed. Syrsky, who began his career in the Soviet military and graduated from the Moscow Higher Military Command School, subscribed to the Soviet centralized command and control system, favoring a top-down approach to command. Fedorov, just 35 years old, has spent his career idolizing the startup, entrepreneurial culture of Silicon Valley, and sought to recreate it in Ukraine. His data-centric approach and favoring of empowering lower commanders has come much to the annoyance of the traditional military establishment.
While the Syrsky-Fedorov rivalry was fairly well known, the two were publicly silent on the matter until Thursday, when the departing Fedorov let loose in his speech/presentation.
“I did not set the condition ‘either me or Syrsky.’ The president decided not to dismiss him. I accepted that and was ready to work with this commander in chief. But all our initiatives began to be blocked,” Fedorov said.
“Syrsky is not ready to speak openly about the problems. Instead of thinking about how to defeat Russia, he came up with how to split the country,” he added.
Fedorov then went a step further by directly calling for Syrsky to be fired, an objective of his long-rumored but never openly said, along with much of the top military staff.
“We need fundamental personnel decisions. A new commander in chief, a new chief of the General Staff, so that our young commanders are no longer held back,” he said.
How will this affect Ukraine’s ability to fight?
The biggest question circulating around Fedorov’s firing is how it will change Ukraine’s battlefield fortunes. Though the major dynamics on the battlefield haven’t changed, with Russia still largely advancing in the Donbas at a slow pace while the two powers exchange drone and missile strikes against key infrastructure, the past six months have seen two key developments that have led to more positive headlines for Ukraine.
The biggest and most talked about change was Ukraine’s expanded drone campaign against Russian energy infrastructure and logistics, boosted by new technologies and AI integration. The highly visible drone strikes on Russia’s energy infrastructure have won Fedorov plaudits from Western media, though the expanded campaign began in August.
The other major change has been localized counteroffensives, which have found limited success in areas outside the Donbas, such as Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv.
The firing of Fedorov has led to panic in many Western pro-Ukraine circles, with observers fearing Zelensky is squandering Ukraine’s recent bout of good fortune through firing the mastermind of Ukraine’s drone advancements. The full picture may not be as simple, however.
Peter Korotaev, an independent Ukrainian journalist who has written extensively about the war in his Events in Ukraine Substack, told the Washington Examiner that a full understanding of Fedorov’s impact is difficult to make out due to his skill in public relations.
“I think it’s hard, because Fedorov is such a PR guy that there must be a lot of exaggerations there,” he said.
However, Korotaev leans on the side of doubting any decisive impact from Fedorov.
“He wasn’t really in charge that long anyway; the spike in [drone] production probably would have happened anyway,” he said.
Regarding Fedorov’s strength in PR, Korotaev doubted some of the former defense minister’s more grandiose claims, including that touted as his greatest achievement — allegedly personally convincing Elon Musk to shut off the use of Starlink for the Russians.
“In fact, Fedorov’s glorious reign is, as his critics often say, largely in the form of PowerPoints. The fact that he ‘convinced’ Elon Musk to turn off Starlink for the Russians in February was brought up by Fedorov as his greatest achievement, but honestly, it doesn’t sound like a huge task to convince the Americans to cut off military technology to their enemy,” he wrote.
Fedorov’s PR focus won him the scorn of many of Ukraine’s top generals. Some claim his biggest reforms amount to a “PR repackaging” of reforms that were already underway, the Economist reported. One senior general told the outlet that the defense minister amounts to a soccer “goalhanger,” taking credit for ideas and work developed collectively by others, rather than himself.
Another key source of tension is the young entrepreneur’s complete lack of military experience, something many generals believe shows. His reforms “gamifying” drone warfare, even developing a points system for drone kills, end up prioritizing more cinematic “kills” while incentivizing the neglect of the less glamorous but just as important military work, such as monitoring key logistics routes.
“To reform something you have to understand how it works,” one Ukrainian general told the outlet. “Would you really sit in an aeroplane if you saw that the pilot was a shopkeeper?”
Korotaev also pointed out that Ukraine’s long-range drone campaign targeting Russian energy infrastructure has seen a downturn in recent weeks — the last three mass drone attacks against Moscow have all failed. A July 13 attack saw 350 Ukrainian drones sent against Moscow, with all of them shot down.
Even Ukraine’s recent drone boost isn’t free from criticism. Fire Point, the company that designed and produces the FP-1 drone used in its long-range strike campaigns, has come under heavy scrutiny.
Sympathy for Syrsky
Though the Western and Ukrainian public largely side with Fedorov in the dispute with Syrsky, the fight can’t fairly be characterized by Western technology and innovation vs. old Soviet-style bureaucracy and backwardness. Syrsky was a leading figure behind many of Ukraine’s biggest wartime successes, including the defense of Kyiv in 2022 and the Kharkiv counteroffensive of September 2022. Ukraine’s relative successes on parts of the front line this year, such as successful localized counteroffensives in Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia, can be credited in part to Syrsky’s focus on cultivating manpower and forming assault groups.
Many within the military outside the high command also spoke against Fedorov, voicing skepticism about the efficacy of his reforms. Roman Ponomarenko, an analyst in the prestigious 1st Azov Corps, called the reforms a “sham.”
“It’s not intended to truly reform the military, but to commercialize warfare, in a way that will provoke a negative reaction from the vast majority of military personnel. It truly takes talent to achieve that,” he wrote.
A major factor in Syrsky’s favor was how Fedorov’s unpopularity within the military had the potential to cause more problems than simple grumbling. Zelensky has gone to significant lengths to keep the military politically in line, especially among the right-wing Azov Corps. Fedorov’s approach, promoting autonomy among military units, could disrupt this balance, while Syrsky has kept them under control.
Zelensky himself seemed to side with Syrsky in the feud. Several of those present at his meeting with several members of his Servant of the People party told Ukrainska Pravda, a leading liberal nationalist outlet in Ukraine, that the president said he could no longer tolerate the infighting between Fedorov and Syrsky.
“They live in two different worlds. [Fedorov] wants to digitize everything, build a system around technology. The military just wants to be heard. They ask to purchase one type of weapon, but he refuses and finances other areas. They simply stopped hearing each other,” an MP quoted Zelensky as saying.
“It got to the point of absurdity. Syrsky would come and say: ‘Fedorov doesn’t give anything for specific operations.’ Then Fedorov would come and answer: ‘We gave everything, we’re just using it incorrectly, not in the right way and not where it’s needed.’ And so on in a circle,” another MP recalled the president as saying.
Protests have taken place in major cities, but turnout hasn’t been high. The backlash has been similar to that of last year with Mindichgate, which resulted in the firing of one of Zelensky’s top allies, Andriy Yermak.