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Writing in today’s Washington Post, columnist Max Boot gives an accurate – if not somewhat complimentary – criticism of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his firing of his young Defense Minister, Mykhailo Fedorov.
“Though Zelensky is an inspirational wartime leader, he is not infallible. Roughly once a year he makes a boneheaded decision. Almost exactly a year ago, Zelensky tried to curb the power of independent anti-corruption watchdogs, but Ukrainians’ protests forced him to pull back. Last week, he sacked his popular defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, triggering the second set of significant street protests since the war’s start.”
Even though he is now officially out of the job, Ukraine’s military and the war effort in general continue to enjoy the benefits of Fedorov’s scant six months in his position. If measured against most of his predecessors, it is not an exaggeration, said one Ukraine defense industry executive, “that he accomplished more in six months than most of the others who preceded him combined.”
One of the earlier Defense Ministers under Zelenskiy’s administration, retired Gen. Andriy Taran, is the poster child for pathetic administration of the Defense Ministry (MoD). He notably spent a year in the position but in that time never procured a single artillery shell. This was negligence that proved to be disastrous when, three months after his departure, the February 2022 invasion came, and Ukraine’s military was starved for ammunition.
Fedorov’s approach demonstrates how innovation can create a better, more effective solution in a shorter period of time. Rather than playing “catch-up” by pouring millions into scouring the globe for where to buy artillery shells, the 35-year-old defense chief instead focused on developing the world’s most deadly and cost-effective drones. Today around 96 percent of all Russian casualties are caused by drones that cost less and have far more flexibility in their employment than conventional artillery.
“We transformed Ukraine into a global tech leader and a defense powerhouse,” Fedorov stated last Friday on his social media platforms after his removal was announced.
Collateral Damage
The collateral damage from the decision to remove Fedorov continues up to this moment.
One of the leaders of Ukraine’s drone warfare is Pavlo Yelizarov of the Ukraine Air Force (PSU), who resigned as the service’s Deputy Commander in response to Fedorov’s dismissal. He described the loss of Fedorov as “a great evil for the country’s defense capability.”
Yelizarov is not the only one with strong feelings on this matter.
At the same time as there are crowds in the street protesting Fedorov’s removal, the Ukrainian parliament is refusing to approve Zelenskiy’s choice as his replacement. Maj. Gen. Yevhen Khmara, a one-time senior special-operations forces commander. Khmara was one of the planners of the June 2025 Operation Spiderweb, in which Ukraine secretly positioned drones concealed underneath the roofs of pre-fabricated hunting cottages and placed them adjacent to airbases deep in the interior of Russia that housed Russia's Tupolev bomber aircraft. Some 40 of these irreplaceable aircraft were either destroyed or damaged.
As of Friday, the thousands protesting not just in Kyiv but in other Ukrainian cities as well were demanding the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, be fired in addition to Fedorov being restored to his position. Sources in the Ukrainian presidential office revealed Zelenskiy was meeting with military commanders this weekend to gather their analysis of the battlefront. He is also reportedly considering a new senior officer to take command of the Ukraine Armed Forces (ZSU).
The People Are Winning
Ukraine’s increasing advantage over the Russian military in the field grows by the day. Kyiv’s army that was once proclaimed as so weak and underequipped that Moscow’s troops would overrun it in three days is now giving the Russian Armed Forces their worst shellacking since the earliest days after Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Its defeat in the field is now being forecast not so much in terms of “if” but instead “when.”
But if there is a winner in the conflict, it is the Ukrainian population, which has been fighting for independence from Russia and handing corrupt governments their walking papers for more than two decades.
The 2004-2005 Orange Revolution prevented Moscow’s preferred presidential candidate from stealing the election. In the 2013-2014 Winter on Fire Revolution of Dignity, the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych was forced to flee the country after he reneged on his promise to begin Ukraine’s process of becoming a member of the European Union.
Unlike Russia’s Putin, Zelenskiy is not a dictator. When his public strongly disagrees with him, they have no qualms about letting him know it. The biggest winner in this war is the Ukrainian people who will not be bullied, will not be intimidated, and will not be trifled with.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor's degree from DePauw University and a master's degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
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