Ukraine’s defense minister says he told Zelensky that beating Russia required firing the country’s two top commanders. Zelensky fired him instead.
Below is a condensed version of remarks by Mykhailo Fedorov, who was dismissed as Ukraine’s defense minister. Fedorov met with journalists in Kyiv on July 16. His remarks have been edited and reordered for length and clarity; the meaning has been preserved.
Fedorov said he joined Volodymyr Zelensky’s team in 2019 and was the last remaining minister from the first government. Over seven years, he said, he had not pursued a political career of his own. He had never let Zelensky down and had never been implicated in corruption. When he arrived at the Defense Ministry, he found that no one in the army was accountable for anything: commanders were constantly replaced, and anyone disloyal was isolated. Major projects were blocked.
He proposed drastic personnel changes: dismissing Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander in chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, and Andrii Hnatov, the chief of the General Staff, if Ukraine wanted to defeat Russia asymmetrically and minimize losses. When Zelensky said he had no plans to dismiss Syrskyi, Fedorov said he would learn to work with him. But Syrskyi, he said, was unwilling to discuss problems. He was scheming. He issued an ultimatum: either Fedorov or himself. Fedorov said that instead of figuring out how to defeat Russia, Syrskyi had figured out how to split the country. Syrskyi had saved the country in 2022, but the war had changed completely, and Ukraine had to change with it.
Zelensky had offered to make him an adviser, Fedorov said, but he turned it down. Ukrainians were not in the streets for him. They were there for themselves: Ukraine had seized the initiative on the battlefield and in the air, and now that trajectory is breaking. That’s why people are protesting.
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Photo on cover: Tetiana Dzhafarova / AFP / Scanpix / LETA