Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the crowds demanding the return of dismissed Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov that they were right to protest even during the war—then pressed ahead anyway, naming his special operations chief Yevhenii Khmara acting defense minister and passing over both Fedorov and Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, the reported frontrunner.

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“Cardboard” protests against Zelenskyy’s firing of Fedorov erupt across Ukraine

It was the second time in a year that street protests have thrown one of Zelenskyy’s decisions into doubt. Last July, a week of rallies forced him to reverse a law stripping Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies of their independence. He called his own answer an ellipsis rather than a full stop and said Fedorov would remain on his team in a role to be named later, he told a briefing reported by Ukrainska Pravda.

The president tied the incoming minister’s first task to ending “busification”—recruitment officers seizing men in public and bundling them into minibuses bound for enlistment offices. At the briefing, he floated Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko as the man who could stop it. By evening, he had chosen Khmara instead.

The rallies he answered had filled nearly 20 cities that morning, most of the crowds young, and they stayed peaceful.

The man he fired blames the army

Fedorov, in his own farewell briefing hours earlier, argued that no minister can fix mobilization without deeper change within the army, since Ukraine’s recruitment centers answer to the military command rather than the Defense Ministry, as reported by LIGA.net.

Where leadership and supply already work, he said, the problem disappears—pointing to the National Guard’s 13th “Khartia” brigade, which he said has a waiting list of at least 2,000 foreign volunteers. The state, he added, is selling its recruits lies and chaos.

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Fedorov breaks his silence: Ukraine’s army chief Syrskyi gave him an ultimatum—then blocked his reforms

That runs counter to the reason given for his removal. Zelenskyy told his party’s faction that Fedorov had botched the recruitment-center reform and that he could not choose between the minister and Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, lawmakers said afterward, as Censor.net reported.

Zelenskyy turns to his special operations chief

Khmara, whom Zelenskyy had made acting head of the Security Service in January, was told to run the ministry. The president praised his experience directing Ukraine’s long-range strike operations against Russia and said he would ask parliament to confirm him once the legal formalities were done, the president wrote on his official channel.

Parliament has already confirmed a new prime minister, Naftogaz chief Serhii Koretskyi. Khmara’s confirmation is the vote still to come.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has removed the defense minister who built Ukraine’s drone war and pushed Elon Musk to cut Russia off from Starlink—Mykhailo Fedorov, a minister whom Ukrainians, in the last national poll, trust more than the president himself. Analysts and anti-corruption campaigners say the entire government was dissolved to make his removal possible without a scandalous vote.

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Ukraine’s reformist defense Minister is out after six months. Earlier, his audit exposed $7.2 billion in defense overspending

The move has set off a sharp public backlash, which commentators are comparing to last summer’s anti-corruption protests. A senior air force commander resigned, and cardboard-sign crowds returned to the streets of Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, and other cities on the morning of 16 July, hours after Russian ballistic missiles killed two people in Kyiv overnight. Parliament is expected to vote on Zelenskyy’s nominee, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, later in the day.

The crowds gathered at the same Kyiv square, beside the Ivan Franko Theatre and in sight of the Office of the President, where they massed a year ago to defend the country’s anti-corruption agencies. This standoff forced Zelenskyy to reverse course within nine days. By mid-morning, the protests had spread to more cities—Ivano-Frankivsk, Kremenchuk, Poltava, Mykolaiv—with crowds in Kyiv chanting “Shame.”

A resignation from inside the air force

Pavlo Yelizarov, a deputy commander of the air force, announced his resignation in protest, saying he had joined the armed forces in 2022 to win the war, not to imitate activity, and warning that stalling Fedorov’s air-defense reforms would let more Russian missiles and drones through. He called the dismissal grave harm to the country’s defense but said he would stay in uniform.

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Ukraine’s deputy Air Force commander resigns the moment Fedorov loses the ministry

Serhii Sternenko, who advised the ministry on drones, also stepped down.

By the figures Fedorov published in his farewell message, the air force’s interception rate for attack drones rose from 83% to 91% during his six months, and for cruise missiles from 47% to 87%—gains he tied to after-action reviews of each mass Russian strike. His team also ran the Logistics Lockdown program, which is choking Russian resupply to occupied Crimea.

The minister who outpolled the president

Zelenskyy has cast the decision as a management problem. At a Servant of the People faction meeting on 15 July, he pointed to a running conflict between Fedorov and Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi. He said Fedorov had failed to deliver mobilization reform, according to lawmakers who were there.

Olexiy Haran, professor of comparative politics at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and research director at the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation, offered Euromaidan Press a different read.

The stated reason for dismissing Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko—the need for an energy specialist before winter—was unpersuasive, he said, since outgoing first deputy prime minister and energy minister Denys Shmyhal was already a high-level specialist in the field.

The more convincing explanation lay in Fedorov: dissolving the whole cabinet let Zelenskyy drop him without a targeted dismissal vote that would have drawn a scandal. Anti-corruption campaigner Daria Kaleniuk reached the same conclusion, telling the Kyiv Independent the entire government resignation was conceived to remove Fedorov.

The trigger, Haran said, may be Fedorov’s popularity. In a recent KIIS poll from May and early June, more Ukrainians trusted Fedorov than distrusted him by a margin of 29 points—wider than Zelenskyy’s 27, and beaten only by the Kharkiv mayor and the war’s most-trusted commanders, among them former army chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

Zelenskyy, Haran said, may have come to see his defense minister as a rival, and he predicted the removal would only lift Fedorov’s standing.

A former minister’s harsher read

Former infrastructure minister Volodymyr Omelyan told Euromaidan Press that the reshuffle could be an attempt to strengthen the government before a hard winter—but only if real professionals are appointed and left to work free of the Office of the President, which he doubted would happen.

Zelenskyy’s overriding aim, Omelyan argued, is to consolidate the security services and sideline the opposition to hold power indefinitely, with the war effort, arming the military, and EU integration all ranked behind the private interests of a few people around him.

He dismissed a theory foreign analysts had raised with Euromaidan Press—that the change is meant to reset relations with Poland—as nonsense, saying it would take new presidents in both countries.

Doubts about the successor

Klymenko, tapped to replace him, brings his own controversy. Non-affiliated MP Liudmyla Buimister warned that handing him defense would endanger a key wartime ministry, saying he had failed outright as interior minister.

She blamed him for the chaotic “busification” mobilization drives—in which men are seized off the street into vans—that police, she said, first stood back from and then made worse, in remarks on Telegram.

Incoming prime minister Serhii Koretskyi defended the nominee, calling him a results-driven minister. The objection lands on the exact ground Zelenskyy used to justify the swap: he faulted Fedorov for failing on mobilization, and mobilization is the brief on which Buimister says Klymenko has already failed.

Whether the protests move Zelenskyy is the open question. Last summer, mass protests and a freeze on EU aid reversed a similar move in nine days. Haran expects it to be harder this time: a reversal would mean Zelenskyy openly readmitting Fedorov, and the president, he said, is stubborn in such moments.

A senior Ukrainian Air Force commander has quit over Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov's removal, public broadcaster Suspilne reported. Pavlo Yelizarov tied his resignation to the reshuffle, and warned about the reforms it leaves hanging.

A resignation report tied to one firing

Yelizarov posted his resignation report in the stories on his Facebook page. He gave a single reason: Fedorov's dismissal.

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Ukraine’s reformist defense Minister is out after six months. Earlier, his audit exposed $7.2 billion in defense overspending

Yelizarov joined Ukraine's Armed Forces on 24 February 2022, the first day of Russia's full-scale invasion. He took the deputy Air Force command on 19 January 2026.

The reshuffle behind the exit

His departure comes during a wider Cabinet shake-up. Ukraine's parliament confirmed Fedorov as defense minister on 14 January, replacing Denys Shmyhal, in Yulia Svyrydenko's government.

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On 15 July, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signaled he would propose Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko for the post in the new Cabinet — a criticized pick.

The dismissal also brought people onto the streets. Ukrainians rallied against it in Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipro, Vinnytsia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Khmelnytskyi, Uzhhorod, Lutsk, Kropyvnytskyi, and other cities.

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“Cardboard” protests against Zelenskyy’s firing of Fedorov erupt across Ukraine

Ukraine is heading into a government reshuffle: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced a renewal of the Cabinet of Ministers on 12 July, Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram, and Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko confirmed she is leaving the post. The President tied the shake-up to an updated political strategy for the war's demands. Parliament could vote on the change within days.

A new strategy, a new government

"Ukraine is changing its political strategy," Zelenskyy wrote. 

A specific, experienced person will answer for every priority direction, he said, naming the United States and the Patriot license deal, a European anti-ballistic project, EU membership, relations with Poland and Hungary, and preparation for winter, when the Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities are likely to escalate as they did every previous winter. 

"We determined that the changes require a renewal of the Cabinet of Ministers," the President added, thanking Svyrydenko and offering her "a new significant direction in relations with a key partner."

Svyrydenko confirmed the departure the same day. 

"I am ready to continue serving the Ukrainian state and carrying out tasks aimed at strengthening Ukraine's positions, protecting national interests, and bringing a just peace closer," she wrote.

She has led the government for almost a year, since 17 July 2025. Several MPs say her new post may be Ukraine's embassy in Washington, though officially the role stays unnamed. The President also promised changes among the heads of law enforcement agencies.

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The Naftogaz chief leads the race

Lawmakers name four candidates for the premiership: Naftogaz and Ukrnafta chief Serhii Koretskyi, First Vice PM and Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal, Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, and Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov. Opposition MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak called Koretskyi the favorite. Sources of RBC-Ukraine, including in the President's Office, agree.

Koretskyi took over loss-making Ukrnafta in 2022 and turned it into one of Ukraine's most profitable companies. In spring 2025, he became head of Naftogaz with the state gas company's storage nearly empty — and steered it through the hardest winter. If appointed, he becomes Ukraine's third prime minister of the full-scale war. Zheleznyak says the Rada may vote on dismissing the Premier as early as 13–14 July, after which the government works in acting status, likely under Shmyhal's interim leadership.

Meetings with ministers and a mayor

Alongside the announcement, Zelenskyy published reports on one-on-one meetings with Koretskyi, Shmyhal, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, Fedorov, and Terekhov — each with public praise for results. Such a string of individual audiences is not an ordinary day in Kyiv. On the eve of a reshuffle, every man in those chairs needed a message: assurance that he stays, or word that he moves.

The timing follows the President's evening address on 11 July, announcing the coming personnel changes on diplomatic fronts over the slow delivery of agreed weapons support.