People in Ukraine are taking to the streets and shouting: ‘Hands off Fedorov!’

Kyiv. After returning from Paris on the morning of 15 July, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held numerous meetings with foreign leaders and attended various events to mark Ukrainian Statehood Day. It was not until late afternoon that he turned his attention back to domestic political matters. Having initiated a government reshuffle on 12 July, and following Parliament’s confirmation on 14 July of Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko’s resignation, it was still unclear whether Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov would join the new government. Alarming rumours about his resignation had been circulating for three days. Many hoped, however, that the president, having seen the public reaction on social media – where many influencers were criticising Fedorov’s possible resignation – would change his mind.

It was last night that Zelensky and Fedorov finally met. At 9.15 pm, the minister posted on Facebook: “It has been a great honour to serve the Ukrainian people as Minister of Defence,” he wrote, listing 20 achievements in the post and concluding: “But we should have been even more resolute in sacking those who stood in the way of change.” Half an hour later, veteran Dmytro Kozyatynsky called for a rally near the Ivan Franko Theatre in Kyiv for the following morning: “We cannot defeat Russia as long as total inertia and corruption reign in our army and our ministries.” The response was immediate; at 8.45 this morning, people slowly made their way towards the theatre along Gorodetsky Street. This time there was no need to come up with anything new; the experience of last year’s protests proved useful, and the demonstrators had already brought with them cardboard boxes and torn postal parcels; once they arrived at Theatre Square, they wrote on them: “We want Fedorov back”, “Are the drones resigning too?”, ‘The enemy liked this’, ‘I love Deepstrike’ (referring to the bombing campaign on Russian territory).

Tetyana Serhieva, 43, tells Il Foglio that in 2022 she and her husband returned to Ukraine from China, where they were working, to enlist in the Ukrainian army and defend their country, but were turned away. “And now they’re blaming Fedorov for all the problems with the mobilisation,” she complains. Her husband then went off to fight, whilst she stayed behind to run a business in Kyiv. Her hometown, Melitopol, has been occupied by Russian troops since 2022. “I want Fedorov to stay and Syrsky to go,” she explains, thus justifying her participation in the protest. Oleksandr Syrsky is the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army; he is 60 years old and took up the post following Valeri Zaluzhny’s resignation. In 2022, he led the operation to liberate the Kharkiv and Kherson regions. But since then, the war has changed radically, and by 2026 it looks completely different.

At 11.30 am, Fedorov gathered journalists in the basement of a hotel in Kyiv to take stock of his tenure as Defence Minister. The meeting was also attended by many MPs from various political parties. Among them was Mykyta Poturaev, a member of the President’s party, Servant of the People, who decided to resign from his seat in protest against the minister’s dismissal. The MPs attended the briefing immediately after the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament, voted 289 in favour of appointing Serhiy Koretsky as Prime Minister – a technocrat with proven experience in the private sector and state-owned enterprises, and former head of Naftogaz. Koretsky will now have to prepare Ukraine for a difficult winter. Mykhailo Fedorov spoke with unprecedented candour during the briefing. He stated that he had been a loyal ally of the president for seven years, a member of his team, and that he had never pursued a political career. The Defence Minister attributes his resignation to the fact that Syrsky issued an ultimatum to the President, demanding his removal. Their relationship has been strained from the outset, and the minister accuses him of blocking many of his initiatives. “Instead of figuring out how to defeat Russia through asymmetric attacks – which is the commander-in-chief’s job – he has figured out how to divide the country, and that is why we are here today,” he said. The minister is convinced that Ukraine must continue to develop technology and drones and step up its attacks against Russia.

Syrsky, however, was not the only one calling for Fedorov’s resignation. The Defence Minister actively fought corruption within the ministry and in the public procurement system, through which drones are purchased. He wanted to move towards fair tendering processes, which did not sit well with many companies that were reaping excessive profits. Following Fedorov’s efforts, the anonymous Telegram channel Trukha, with over 3 million subscribers, began attacking the minister. Furthermore, a source close to the minister told *Il Foglio* that David Arakhamia, leader of Servant of the People, had also advised the president to remove Fedorov from his post. “He told me to stay out of it,” the former minister told reporters. Public protests and street demonstrations have prevented the Verkhovna Rada from voting on the appointment of Fedorov’s replacement. Zelensky, meanwhile, has stated that he will continue to assess potential candidates, but Parliament has entered its summer recess, which will last until 18 August; until then, General Yevhenii Khmara will serve as Minister of Defence.