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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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.

Outgoing Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov used a briefing on 16 July to say Ukraine's top military command blocked his reforms and that Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi handed him an ultimatum, Militarnyi reported. He said he had pushed to replace both Syrskyi and General Staff chief Andrii Hnatov, and that the General Staff spent months refusing to sign off on his changes. He spoke a day after confirming he was leaving the post.

Zelenskyy's decision drew a rare wartime backlash: protests broke out in Kyiv and more than a dozen cities, and deputy Air Force commander Pavlo Yelizarov resigned the same day, warning that the firing and the blocking of Fedorov's reforms would "cause numerous casualties and destruction of Ukraine." 

Fedorov, credited with building the drone force that reshaped the war, is being replaced mid-reform. 

The ultimatum

Fedorov said that once Zelenskyy told him he did not plan to dismiss Syrskyi, he accepted it and agreed to work with the general, "because our client is the Ukrainian people." But his ministry's initiatives began to be blocked, he said, and Syrskyi was "not ready to talk about problems personally, to his face."

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Instead, the commander preferred to "weave intrigues" and assume someone had ordered a media campaign against him. That is what led Syrskyi to effectively deliver an ultimatum, Fedorov said.

"Instead of figuring out how to defeat Russia asymmetrically, which is the commander-in-chief's task, he figured out how to split the country," he said. 

Fedorov stressed he had not set an "either me or Syrskyi" condition and was ready to keep working, and credited Syrskyi with saving the country in 2022. But the war had fully changed since, he argued: 

"The drone changes the architecture. The management system has changed, we must change."

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Why he wanted the command replaced

Fedorov said he had proposed "radical personnel decisions" — removing both Syrskyi and Hnatov — to fix systemic problems in the army, Liga reported. Ukraine has no other option, he argued, if it wants to beat the enemy asymmetrically and with minimal losses, "where strong leader-commanders will develop, will not be suppressed and written off." He tied the demand to ending abuses in the army, including in the Skelia assault regiment, hit weeks earlier by reports of non-combat deaths in its training centers.

The blocking

The obstruction was concrete, Fedorov said. For six months the General Staff refused to sign the documents needed to change the ministry's structure and create a competence center, citing formal objections and a reluctance to bring in new people.

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The ministry kept improvising around the blocks: 

"We always hacked this with some non-standard solutions and continue to do it, but overall it doesn't work if we're talking about a serious system." 

Even routine reforms stalled — approving a basic plan to supply brigades with drones took four months, and distribution still ran on loyalty rather than need, he said at the same briefing.

Fedorov also rejected the blame directed at his ministry over mobilization, noting the recruitment centers answer to the commander-in-chief and the General Staff, not to him, Liga reported. There is no fixing mobilization "without a new social contract and without real changes in the army," he said.

Ukraine’s parliament votes on the afternoon of 14 July to dismiss Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko, while the Washington ambassadorship offered as her exit remains unaccepted.

As of that morning, Svyrydenko was not considering the role for herself, three sources told Suspilne. Hours earlier, the Rada’s state-building committee backed her resignation—16 votes in favor, four abstentions. Whether she has refused outright is not known.

The Washington posting is the official rationale for the change. Sources in the President’s Office linked her exit to the need to replace Ukraine’s ambassador in the US—a role, they said, that requires an exceptionally strong figure as Kyiv works through the Patriot production license.

If the premier does not take the job, Ukraine’s second wartime change of prime minister rests on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s broader case: that the Cabinet needs renewal.

What Svyrydenko told parliament

Speaking to the committee before its vote, Svyrydenko said the president had made clear that the Cabinet needed to be renewed and certain policy directions strengthened, naming social and education policy as areas that could be run more effectively, Suspilne reported.

In her departure statement, Svyrydenko wrote on Telegram that she had discussed with the president the changes needed to strengthen the government’s work and relations with international partners, thanked her Cabinet, and said she is ready to continue serving the state and working toward a just peace.

Neither she nor Zelenskyy has publicly named a precise reason for the change. Government sources told Suspilne the president is satisfied with her work and has no complaints.

Who governs next

The likeliest candidate for the premiership is Serhii Koretskyi, head of state energy company Naftogaz, three sources in the President’s Office and the government told Suspilne. Koretskyi turned loss-making Ukrnafta profitable after 2022 and steered Naftogaz through the past winter.

Suspilne reported that Zelenskyy wanted an energy-sector figure in place before the next heating season amid Russian attacks. If parliament approves the dismissal, the Cabinet serves in an acting capacity, likely under First Vice Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, until a new government is voted in.

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A year, minus three days

Zelenskyy proposed Svyrydenko for premiership exactly one year before the dismissal vote, on 14 July 2025; she took office three days later. Her year in charge spanned the attempt to strip Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies of independence and the largest protests of the full-scale war, which reversed it.

It also saw the Midas corruption case that toppled the head of the President’s Office, the opening of Ukraine’s first EU accession negotiating cluster, and a €90 billion ($104.4 billion) EU loan. The sixth cluster opens in Brussels on the day parliament votes on her dismissal.

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.