"This [appointing Mykhailo Drapatyi, a popular and innovative general, as the new head of Ukraine’s armed forces], brings a breath of fresh air and new hope to the struggle of free people for freedom and justice. It is a voice for change that could not be ignored."

"The high expectations of the Ukrainian people must be met with a clear vision for ending the war for independence, a strong team and decisive actions aimed at saving the lives of our soldiers, automating the frontline, delivering asymmetric strikes and crippling the Russian economy."

Mykhailo Fedorov, former Ukraine defence minister 

 

"I offered Mykhailo a prominent position within the government that would enable him to unify the technological sector of our state and ensure its development."

"Our shared wish is one – victory over the enemy and conditions at the front and in pressure on Russia that would force Russia toward peace."

"A significant path has been travelled, the defence of Ukraine continues, and every warrior deserves dignified treatment."

"We have come a long way. The defence of Ukraine continues. And every soldier deserves to be treated with respect."

"I am grateful to Syrskyi and to] every one of our soldiers [fighting on the frontline]." 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy  

Oleksandr Syrskyi and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kharkiv, Ukraine, in 2022.  Metin Aktaş / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images file

 

In a sudden move a week ago President Volodymyr Zelenskyy decided to remove his popular defence minister, his prime minister and several days later the commander-in-chief of his armed forces. Puzzlingly, this at a time when Ukrainian drones are hitting Russian refineries, while Moscow's summer offensive has stalled on most front areas and Ukraine has been restoring some of its sovereign territories.  Relations with Trump have settled down, and Ukraine has been given permission to manufacture its own U.S.-style interceptor missiles.

 

Yet at this signal time in Ukraine's history its president has announced a new "political strategy" through the reshuffling of its major war figures responsible for these successes. Thousand of Ukrainians poured into the streets across the country to protest the removal of  the popular Mykhailo Fedorov, credited as a key architect of Ukraine's advances in a drone warfare breakthrough. With no satisfactory explanation for the removal, Ukrainians fed up with corruption and alert to malfeasance, have campaigned for his reinstatement as minister of defence.

 

On the surface it appears that a generational conflict over how best to wage a modern war should proceed, as well as conflicts over corruption, inclusive of turf battles between the Defence Ministry and the generals, plus a president with a reputed tendency to remove subordinates who become too popular in the public regard, lest they become competitors for his alpha-executive governing position. 

 

With the acute realization that he may have made some awkward decisions that would not be well received not only by the Ukrainian public, but by the White House and Ukraine's NATO allies, Mr. Zelenskyy has been left to scramble in hopes of containing the fallout. It has become clear that deep institutional tensions on command structures in Ukraine which were brewing for months, have led to this crisis in confidence.  

"Probably [Zelensyy] didn't grasp fully how Fedorov has become so closely associated with positive changes."

"And the overall protest morphed into broad debate on war strategy and battlefield management."

Mykola Bielieskov, Kyiv defence analyst  

Former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov holds a briefing in Kyiv on Thursday.  Danylo Antoniuk / Future Publishing via Getty Images

 

The disrupter-style hacks that were championed by younger officials tended to raise the hackles of old-guard battlefield tacticians, Mykhailo Fedorov first among them. Fedorov's innovative approach to the battlefield had won the approval of many officials in NATO, who privately expressed disappointment that Mr. Zelenskyy moved against his continuing in the role of Minister of Defence. 

 

Five consecutive nights saw thousands of noisy protesters outside the president's Kyiv office following Fedorov's dismissal as Minister of Defence, as rallies took place in over a dozen cities.  The public pressure succeeded in having the president reverse course, to fire Ukraine's commander-in-chief, Oleksander Syrsky and to replace him with another reform-minded commander, while offering Fedorov a new high-level government role. 

 

It had been widely rumoured that bad blood in battlefield disagreements between Fedorov and Syrsky led the commander-in-chief to demand that a choice had to be made by Zelenskyy; either Fedorov had to leave or he would. That choice was made, and then reversed under the weight of public censure. 

 

Syrsky's appointment to lead Ukraine's military arrived two years ago, replacing another poplar head of the armed forces, General Valery Zaluzhny, top commander during the February 2022 Russian invasion. A number of military issues led Zaluzhny to clash with Zelenskyy; the latter's request to mobilize 500,000 new soldiers one of those irritants.  It was likely that political ambitions on Zaluzhny's part finally poisoned their relations.

 

Disagreement between those who believe that drones and robots should drive the war to its winning conclusion as opposed to those who place their trust in conventional infantry and artillery to win the war has the former now feeling vindicated. The military tactics with the use of drones have unquestionably turned the tide of the war in Ukraine's favour. 

 

According to an interpretation by a European diplomat stationed in Kyiv, the turbulence between generational factions, corruption currents and personal egos are all involved. "All three of those reasons are  true. But also Fedorov is a political threat to Zelenskyy; many groups wanted to take him down." 

 

Volodymyr Zelenskyy with Oleksandr Syrskyi at the handover of drone missiles to the Ukrainian army in Kyiv in December 2024. Photograph: Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA

  

Russia Victimized by its Military Incompetence

"Today I have sent letters to the investigative Committee and the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation with a request to check on the fact of the commission of a crime during the preparation and during the conduct of the SMO [Special Military Operation] by a host of senior functionaries of the Defence Ministry."

"These letters will not be published due to the fact that the investigative authorities will deal with this."

Yevgeny Prigozhin, Chief, Wagner Group

An image taken from a video posted online by the Prigozhin Press Service on May 5, 2023, shows the head of Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, standing by bodies in an unknown location as he addresses the camera. The owner of Russia's private military company Wagner, Prigozhin, said he would pull Wagner forces from the battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut on May 10, accusing Russia's military command of starving the group of ammunition. Prigozhin Press Service via AP

Russia's unpreparedness for Ukraine's aggressive and hugely effective military reaction to Moscow's invasion of its neighbour has the Kremlin and President Putin on their back foot, embarrassed by their own vulnerability in facing drone incursions into the heart of Moscow, over the Kremlin, targeting the areas where the elite of Russian corporate interests live in their mansions. The ability of a suspected Ukraine offensive to hit Russian border towns and energy and munitions storage depots is bringing home to Russia that they are as likely to suffer the extremes of conflict as what they have imposed upon Ukraine.

The bad-tempered complainant and vociferous critic of the Russian military who has been careful not to criticize Vladimir Putin, his dear friend for whom he has boundless admiration, has turned his sights once again on the Russian top military, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, both of whom Yevgeny Prigozhin detests, claiming they are jealous of the successes gained by his Wagner Group, withholding badly needed weaponry in their nefarious plan to have Wagner mercenaries suffer losses from the Ukrainian military's defenses, while the Russian military gains control and prevails.

Now the most public challenge against the top military brass has been lodged front and centre for prosecutors to investigate crimes committee by the senior Russian defence officials, prior to or throughout the Ukraine war. Prigozhin's vendetta-laden accusations against the two senior leaders for their poor performance, for ignoring his demands for weapons supplies, for alleged treachery is the culmination of his months-long insults and charges of incompetence and stupidity in the prosecution of the conflict and their responsibility in the massive Russian death count of both the military and the Wagner mercenaries.

EPA-EFE/Sergey Kozlov

 

Prigozhin's outrageous charges and his hysterical performances represent an embarrassment to Moscow, which appears never to have responded to any of his charges. He has never launched a challenge against President Putin, and he has high popularity among those Russians dissatisfied with the Russian military role in the conflict imposed upon Ukraine. Their dismay at the losses in the conduct of the war, from war blogger buffs and influential oligarchs to the vast public whose sons have been killed through inept strategies, support the former restaurateur-turned-mercenary chief.

Ukrainian artillery hit a Russian town for a third time, with drones striking two oil refineries, as attacks on Russian territory gain traction. Ukraine bring the war that Russia brought to Ukraine, right back to Russia. Which seems reasonable enough, despite Moscow fuming that such attacks represent terrorist war crimes. Russian citizens are being wounded in their own towns, shells damaging apartments, homes and schools and power lines and industrial facilities. Details quite familiar to Ukrainians living in towns and cities across the vast territory of Ukraine.

Both Ukraine and Russia have committed to targeting each other's forces and military equipment building up to the anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive in weeks or days to come. In eastern Ukraine its general staff described Ukrainian forces fending off 22 Russian attacks in one day alone, when Ukrainian aircraft carried out 11 strikes on Russian personnel and military equipment.

Ukrainian service members from a 110th Separate Mechanis\zed Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, prepare fire a self-propelled howitzer "Dana", amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, near the town of Avdiivka in Donetsk region, Ukraine. Photo by Sofiia Gatilova/REUTERS

 

"This duality [inequality between the elite and the ordinary Russian citizen] may end like it did in 1917, with a revolution, when first the soldiers rise up, and after that their loved ones do."

"[Russian citizens could raid the elites' homes with] pitchforks… and don't think there are hundreds of them, now there are now tens of thousands of relatives of those killed, and there will probably be hundreds of thousands."

"We stormed in an aggressive manner and stomped our boots all over Ukraine while looking for Nazis. We approached Kyiv, s**t our pants, and retreated. Next onto Kherson, where we also s**t our pants and retreated, and nothing seems to be working out for us."

"There are optimistic and pessimistic scenarios. The optimistic one, which I don't really believe in, is that Europe and America will get tired of the Ukrainian conflict, then China will put everyone at the negotiating table."

"We will agree that everything that we have already seized is ours, and everything that has not been seized is not ours. It is unlikely that this scenario is possible."

Yevgeny Prigozhin