PARIS — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s decision to push out Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov after just six months has triggered an unusual backlash in wartime Ukraine, with soldiers, civil society activists and even members of the president’s own party warning that the move risks derailing military reforms at a critical point in the war.
The 35-year-old former technology entrepreneur had been brought into the Defense Ministry in January to shake up one of Ukraine’s largest and most oversight-resistant bureaucracies. Mr. Fedorov was charged with importing and implementing the fast-moving, data-heavy approach he had used to help expand the country’s sprawling drone industry and digitalize other departments of the Ukrainian government.
His tenure ended abruptly this week as part of a broader Cabinet reshuffle that also swept out Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko after less than a year in office. Lawmakers said Mr. Zelenskyy plans to nominate Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko to replace Mr. Fedorov, although parliament must approve the appointment.
Mr. Zelenskyy has offered little public explanation for removing a minister whose political stock appeared to be rising.
That vacuum has fueled questions over whether Mr. Fedorov fell victim to the very reforms he had been brought in to carry out.
“The main problem is that Fedorov started trying to bring order to the arms market and defense procurement,” political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko told The Washington Times shortly before the decision was announced.
“There are very strong conflicts of interest and extremely fierce competition there,” he said. “By trying to clean it up, Fedorov effectively provoked conflicts with people whose interests were affected.”
Mr. Fesenko said what he described as a broad “anti-Fedorov coalition” had emerged in recent months, spanning parts of parliament, government institutions and figures close enough to the presidential team to make their views heard by Mr. Zelenskyy. His assessment echoes reporting that Mr. Fedorov repeatedly resisted efforts to direct lucrative weapons contracts toward favored companies, angering powerful interests in Ukraine’s political and defense establishment.
Mr. Fedorov appeared to acknowledge the resistance himself in a lengthy account of his tenure posted as he prepared to leave office. Among his accomplishments, he wrote that his team had “initiated an unpopular but vital transformation of the military.”
The backlash to Mr. Zelenskyy’s latest shuffle was swift.
Maria Berlinska, one of Ukraine’s best-known advocates for military drone development, called Mr. Fedorov’s removal one of Mr. Zelenskyy’s biggest mistakes and warned that Ukrainians could ultimately pay for the decision with their lives.
Oleksandr Merezhko, chairman of parliament’s foreign affairs committee and a member of Mr. Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party, said Mr. Fedorov was highly respected by Ukraine’s international partners and had become associated with hopes for genuine reform at the Defense Ministry.
Two prominent advisers also announced they were leaving. Serhii Sternenko, an activist and major supplier of drones to frontline units, praised Mr. Fedorov as Ukraine’s most effective defense minister and pointed to reforms that remained unfinished. Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, a specialist in drones and electronic warfare, similarly said numerous projects would now have to be handed to another team.
The furor stands in sharp contrast to the optimism surrounding Mr. Fedorov’s appointment in January.
“The arrival of Fedorov symbolizes first of all a different style of management,” Hanna Shelest, director of security programs at the Ukrainian Prism think tank, told The Times after he took over the ministry.
The expectation was that a politician who had built his reputation on digital government and helped nurture Ukraine’s defense technology ecosystem might force an institution shaped by decades of bureaucracy to move at the speed demanded by modern warfare.
Mr. Fedorov pushed what he called the “mathematics of war” — an analytics-based approach that uses battlefield data to measure the effectiveness of units and weapons, automate demand for drones and redirect resources toward systems that produce results. He expanded technological programs while trying to overhaul procurement and recruitment, although critics said his reforms in the latter area had failed to produce results quickly enough.
Those efforts also put him on a collision course with more traditional elements of the military establishment.
Mr. Fesenko said some of Mr. Fedorov’s proposals on the organization of the armed forces, mobilization and methods of warfare were deeply unpopular among parts of the military leadership. Reports of tensions with Commander-in-Chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi had circulated for months, although the military has denied any personal conflict between the two men.
Mr. Fesenko said the friction was initially part of a deliberate system of competing centers of influence created by Mr. Zelenskyy.
“Fedorov was supposed to restrain Syrskyi and propose a new strategy of war, the technologization of war,” he said. “In principle, it worked reasonably well.”
But the arrangement grew increasingly strained as Mr. Fedorov attempted to change personnel policies, procurement priorities and the way battlefield performance was measured.
The controversy is also feeding a wider debate over how power operates inside Mr. Zelenskyy’s wartime government.
Opposition lawmaker Yaroslav Yurchyshyn argues that successive reshuffles have hollowed out the Cabinet’s independent political role and concentrated strategic decision-making around the presidency. In his assessment, ministers are increasingly expected to execute decisions rather than build their own political authority, creating a system in which successful, proactive officials can eventually become liabilities if they develop an independent public profile.
Mr. Yurchyshyn also points to the growing weakness of parliament in the process. Although the Constitution requires 226 lawmakers to approve a new prime minister, Mr. Zelenskyy’s once-dominant Servant of the People faction can no longer reliably muster such a majority on its own. Opposition parties say they are prepared to discuss candidates and programs but complain that meaningful consultation rarely takes place.
For Mr. Yurchyshyn, the issue goes beyond personalities. Repeated government “reloads,” he argues, have made it harder to attract strong independent managers who know they may have little autonomy and can be removed with little public explanation.
The latest shake-up comes as Ukraine prepares for another difficult winter after Russian attacks badly damaged its power and heating infrastructure. Mr. Zelenskyy has made winter preparation the central justification for his choice of Naftogaz chief Sergii Koretskyi as the likely next prime minister, citing his experience as a crisis manager in the energy sector.
Mr. Fesenko said that logic makes sense for the premiership. But he questioned whether changing defense ministers at the same time was worth the disruption.
“Many people now regard this position as an electric chair,” he said. “The problems and challenges Fedorov faces will also confront another minister.”
Replacing him with Mr. Klymenko, a career police official who has run the Interior Ministry since 2023, could create its own difficulties, Mr. Fesenko said. Mr. Fedorov was a civilian with deep ties to Ukraine’s drone and defense technology communities and had built a degree of credibility with the military. A former national police chief taking over the armed forces’ civilian leadership may receive a less welcoming reception.
“It will be extremely difficult for Zelenskyy to find such a strong candidate for defense minister,” Mr. Fesenko said.
The political analyst said Mr. Zelenskyy values unity inside his team and has a history of eventually removing officials who become centers of internal conflict. That may help explain why Mr. Fedorov, despite remaining one of the administration’s most recognizable and popular officials, became expendable.
But the speed of the decision carries risks.
“Changing the defense minister every six months is not appropriate during a war,” Mr. Fesenko said. “Fedorov has authority, and he has launched reforms.”
For a country whose battlefield survival increasingly depends on its ability to innovate faster than Russia, the question now is whether those reforms have become strong enough to survive the reformer who pushed them through.
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