Ukraine Fired the Man Who Rewired Its War. Now Comes the Real Test
On July 15, Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s 35-year-old defense minister, announced he’d been removed from the post after six months
UPDATE: as evidence of how fast the story is currently moving, as of Sunday morning, Fedorov is expected to move to the National Security and Defense Council, where he would chair a newly established Defense MilTech and Strategic Planning Coordination Council.
If confirmed, the position would place him in direct service to President Volodymyr Zelensky and give him broad authority over Ukraine’s defense technology portfolio, including the Brave1 innovation initiative, long-range drone development, and the country’s missile programs. The new council would reportedly allow Fedorov to coordinate these efforts with fewer bureaucratic layers than exist within the Defense Ministry or General Staff. His portfolio is also expected to include continued oversight of anti-corruption efforts in military procurement, expanding digital transparency across defense logistics and auditing contracts after an initial review identified roughly UAH 300 billion (about $6.6 billion) in potential savings through procurement reforms.
Beyond domestic reforms, Fedorov is expected to remain one of Kyiv’s chief envoys to Western governments and investors, helping attract foreign investment into Ukraine’s defense technology sector while continuing to expand the successful “Danish model” of joint defense production with European partners.
Hey friends, happy Sunday.
Let me say one thing before we start. I’m an American sitting comfortably outside a war Ukraine has been fighting for its life for over four years. I don’t get a vote on how Volodymyr Zelensky manages his own defense ministry during that fight. Zelensky made this call for reasons that aren’t fully public yet, and Ukrainians are the ones who’ll live with whatever comes next, not me.
With that said, what just happened deserves a close, honest look, because it’s a genuinely fascinating test of something I care a great deal about. Whether a wartime reform outlives the reformer.
On July 15, Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s 35-year-old defense minister, announced he’d been removed from the post after six months.
In that short stretch, he became the political face of Ukraine’s effort to make its military move at the speed of the technology reshaping the battlefield around it, and now everyone gets to find out whether that speed was ever actually institutionalized, or whether it was just one guy running very, very fast.
What happened, and what’s still murky
Fedorov’s removal landed inside a much larger cabinet shakeup, triggered when Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko resigned and Zelensky brought in Naftogaz’s CEO, Serhii Koretskyi, to replace her.
