Syrsky, Fedorov and the need for unity within the Ukrainian army

Last year, Ukrainians took to the streets holding placards to call on Volodymyr Zelensky to veto the bill aimed at curtailing the powers of two key anti-corruption bodies in the country, the NABU and the SAPO. The placards bore various demands. The most common and straightforward was: ‘Veto’. The others, more categorical in tone, called for the resignation of Andryi Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff – a friend from his days in show business – who was accused of seeking to protect his shady business dealings by curtailing the powers of the anti-corruption agencies. No one in the square was calling for the president’s resignation. Zelensky listened to the protest and exercised his veto; a few months later, he was forced to sack Yermak, parting ways with one of his aides who had stood by him since the start of the full-scale invasion. He did what the Ukrainians were asking of him. 

During one of the first nights of the war, Zelensky took to the streets to show his country that he and his aides were all still at their posts in Kyiv. Of those images, taken on a street bathed in the dim lights of a city on high alert, few men remain in their posts; Zelensky has continued to reshuffle his government, aides and ministers. He has carried out reshuffles and restructuring, and Mykhailo Fedorov had always remained among the indispensable figures – until last weekend.

Yesterday, Ukrainians took to the streets once again, carrying placards on which they had written their demands. The first was that Minister Fedorov, who had been leading the Ministry of Defence since January, should not be touched. Mindful of the fact that they had been listened to last year, they demanded, demonstrated and shouted, without ever asking the president to step down. Zelensky finds himself once again facing the crowd and protests which, once they begin, are serious and determined. So far, he has tried to explain just how difficult the situation is, but that he is forced to choose between the qualities of the minister who is revolutionising Ukraine’s defence and the functional and necessary communications within the army. An even more difficult decision than last year’s, to be made in front of a wary crowd, accustomed to doing everything in its power to be heard: “During a war, a president should not have to make such a choice. I truly want unity, but the parties have not found it, and this is not just a problem for the parties, but also for me,” said Zelensky.

The parties involved are Oleksandr Syrsky, Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and Mykhailo Fedorov, former Minister for Digital Transformation and, until yesterday, Minister of Defence. The former is a 60-year-old Russian-speaking general who was educated in the military academies of the Soviet era; he was born in the Vladimir Oblast, Russia, and graduated from university in Moscow. His father had been a general in the Red Army; the whole family bears the burden of that history which Ukraine no longer wishes to hear about, and this is one of the reasons why Syrsky has never been popular, despite his name being linked to the first successful counter-offensives against Russia and the defence of Kyiv in the early months of the invasion. Syrsky, however, is a man of few words; even in appearance, he stands apart from this young and communicative Ukrainian leadership. He expresses himself in brief messages, without memorable slogans, and has never won over a nation that remains fond of his predecessor, General Valeryi Zaluzhny – now Ukraine’s ambassador to London – who was among the first senior officers never to have attended Soviet military academies. Whilst Syrsky shares the Soviet legacy in his language, background and tough methods: he is accused of covering up the Skelia Regiment scandal, in which more than twenty soldiers died not on the battlefield, but as a result of alleged torture.

Yesterday, Fedorov, the 35-year-old who discusses satellites with Elon Musk, held a press conference in which he highlighted his achievements. He stood on a low stage, with a screen full of images of drones behind him, wearing a plain dark jumper with no military insignia, almost as if he had come from Silicon Valley rather than from the struggles of a country at war. Speaking plainly, taking the time needed to emphasise the significance of his resignation, he said that Ukrainians do not need a heavy-handed approach forcing them to go and fight; they have stopped the Russians and continue to do so of their own accord; they need reforms, new contracts, rotations at the front, and respect. Syrsky’s strength – his old doctrine of the assault – stands in contrast to Fedorov’s agility, representing that generation of warriors forged by necessity who are shaping the new Ukraine through bloodshed, tenacity and values: the Euromaidan protests first, then resistance in war – all borne with the same stoicism as a dark sweatshirt, without the need for uniforms, and with the unostentatious yet ever-dignified awareness that, in Ukraine today, freedom and death can be synonymous. Every moment has its own war; Syrsky was the man behind the scenes during the early stages – those characterised by massive force and imposing counter-offensives, in which many men died in the assault. This phase, according to Fedorov, requires agility. Not everyone in the army sides with the former Defence Minister; some believe in Syrsky’s methods. It is a painful and dangerous internal struggle between the old and the new, one in which Zelensky has so far always managed to find a compromise.