Fedorov Speaks Out After Ouster: Says Syrskyi Blocked Reforms He Needed to Win the War

Since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the ouster of Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov on July 15 and named Naftogaz chief Serhiy Koretskiy as the new prime minister, the fallout has moved from street protests to Fedorov's own account of what happened. He gave his first extended public comments on July 16, and they go further than the initial reshuffle news did in laying out why he's gone.

Fedorov, 35, told reporters the breaking point was a refusal by General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine's top military commander, to engage directly on the disputes between them. "We ran into a situation where all the initiatives we proposed began to be blocked. And Syrskyi, despite all the problems we've discussed today, was not prepared to openly discuss these problems face to face," Fedorov said, according to RFE/RL.

He went further, accusing Syrskyi of political maneuvering instead of battlefield strategy. "Instead of figuring out how to defeat Russia asymmetrically, which is the commander-in-chief's task, he figured out how to divide the country we are all living in today. And that's a major problem," Fedorov said.

Syrskyi has publicly shown no sign of a rift. "I hope he remains part of the Ukrainian team," the general wrote on social media, thanking Fedorov for his work, according to RFE/RL.

Zelenskyy owns some of the blame

Zelenskyy addressed the split directly in a July 16 speech, confirming the two men clashed over unspecified issues and saying he wanted Fedorov to stay on in some capacity. Fedorov turned down an offer to become a presidential adviser.

"During a war a president shouldn't have to make such a choice. I'd really prefer unity. But the parties didn't find it. And this is not only the problem of the parties, but also mine," Zelenskyy said, per RFE/RL.

At an earlier news conference, Zelenskyy put it more plainly: "I'm just showing that if the sides can't resolve an issue, I will have to resolve it," according to the Associated Press, as reported by PBS News.

What Fedorov says he actually accomplished

During his six months in office, Fedorov says he redirected funds earmarked for salaries into midrange strike capabilities, fiber-optic drones and reconnaissance systems, expanded drone procurement, secured Patriot missile defense contracts, ran successful ballistic missile tests, and overhauled military procurement, according to social media posts he highlighted and reported by PBS News.

He's also credited with a diplomatic win that mattered on the battlefield: persuading Elon Musk's Starlink operation to cut off unauthorized Russian access to the satellite system, which frontline troops say gave Ukraine a real edge, according to the Guardian.

None of that is disputed by Zelenskyy or Syrskyi. The dispute is over what came next, and whether Fedorov's push to remove Syrskyi altogether was the right call or an overreach by a minister with no military service of his own.

The protests and the resignations

Thousands turned out across Ukraine on July 16 to protest Fedorov's removal, according to the AP report carried by PBS News. Hundreds rallied specifically outside Zelenskyy's offices in Kyiv, according to RFE/RL. The deputy commander of Ukraine's Air Force resigned in protest, along with two outside advisers to the ministry, RFE/RL reported.

The Guardian frames this as part of a pattern, arguing the episode exposes "not for the first time, a troubling flaw" in Zelenskyy's leadership, namely a reluctance to resolve rivalries between key wartime figures before they become public crises. Zelenskyy's own comment that the failure to find unity is "also mine" gives some weight to that characterization.

What's still unsettled

Zelenskyy has not named a new defense minister. Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko is one name circulating in Ukrainian media, according to RFE/RL, but nothing is confirmed. New foreign and defense ministers were notably absent from the July 16 parliamentary vote that installed Koretskiy as prime minister and kept Serhiy Marchenko on as finance minister.

Parliament's next session isn't until August 18, meaning the defense ministry could sit in limbo, or under an acting head, for weeks while Russia keeps up its bombing campaign. Overnight strikes on Kyiv killed two people and wounded five, including a child, Ukraine's Emergency Service said, according to the AP.

The dispute lands nearly 53 months into Russia's full-scale invasion, at a moment both RFE/RL and the Guardian describe as one where Ukraine's drone-heavy strategy, the very approach Fedorov championed, has helped fight Russian forces to a near standstill and disrupted Russian fuel supply lines to Crimea. Whether his removal slows that momentum, or whether Syrskyi's command structure can sustain it without him, is the open question nobody in Kyiv has answered yet.