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Ukraine Shake-Up: Zelensky Sacks Popular Defense Chief, & IDs CEO Of Naftogaz As Likely Next Prime Minister

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by Tyler Durden
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Update(1410ET): FT is reporting late in the day Wednesday that Ukraine's 35-year old defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, who has grown in popularity for his 'reformer' reputation and for orchestrating the ramped-up drone war on Russia, has been sacked by Zelensky.

The shock move comes days after Yulia Svyrydenko, Zelensky's prime minister, was forced to step down, and amid a big cabinet shake-up. Zelensky had previewed huge changes coming.

As to who might be elevated as new prime minister, Zelensky has dropped a strong hint that the CEO of the state-owned energy company Naftogaz, Sergii Koretskyi, might be next in the spot...

“The priorities are clear – preparing for winter,” Zelenskyy said on Wednesday as Kyiv braces for another season of expected Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy grid. “Therefore, following ⁠all the consultations, Sergii Koretskyi is surely the ⁠most prepared candidate for the post of prime minister of Ukraine.”

This is already unleashing a flurry of controversy and commentary Wednesday, with pundits scratching their heads and questioning whether Zelensky is actually just playing petty and jealous internal politics - despite the narrative on the war shifting:

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Ukraine's 35-year old defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, has only been in the top military spot for six months, but amid a new Zelensky-initiated major cabinet reshuffling, the FT reports that the military's top spot has been targeted as the next leadership change.

The report has been issued just on the heels of Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko's surprise removal, upon which Zelensky in a statement suggested a broader government overhaul is underway. "Ukraine is changing its political strategy," he made clear.

The Ukrainian leader is "expected to remove defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov, the 35-year-old architect of Ukraine's wartime defence technology drive, after just six months in the post as part of a major cabinet reshuffle," FT writes Wednesday.

via the Ukrainian Review

"Several senior figures close to Zelensky said the president had held conversations about replacing the minister as he prepares to unveil his new government on Thursday," the report adds.

The FT report suggests that the young defense chief's anti-corruption zeal is alienating powerful figures who wish for the wartime situation to be looser with less oversight:

"But defense industry officials, senior Ukrainian officials, MPs from Zelenskyy’s party and others familiar with the matter have said — some publicly — that Fedorov had been a barrier to interests seeking to profit from Ukraine’s vast wartime defence budget… Fedorov repeatedly blocked attempts to steer lucrative procurement contracts to favoured companies, which put him at odds with powerful figures inside Ukraine’s political and defence establishment, said people familiar with the situation."

And yet interestingly President Trump has of late issued positive praise of Ukrainian forces' accomplishments in the area of drone warfare against Russia.

Kiev has further been boasting of its drone tech, and is even seeking to market it abroad, especially in the Middle East where Gulf countries are hungry for better defenses against smaller suicide drones.

Fedorov has been widely seen as having rapidly implemented a transformative vision on this front. For example, earlier this week The Economist wrote:

Tensions simmered barely below the surface at a war-council meeting in early July. Ukraine’s military leaders had mostly good news for their president. Middle- and long-range drone operations were seeing continued successes. A campaign to isolate Russian-occupied Crimea was running ahead of schedule. But as Power Point slides were shown to the testosterone-filled room, the generals griped about missile and ammunition procurement. The focus of their criticism, Mykhailo Fedorov, the 35-year-old tech-savvy defence minister who is known—and occasionally mocked—for his Silicon Valley style presentations, responded in kind.

If it wasn’t for his emergency drone-purchasing decisions at the beginning of the year, which required borrowing money earmarked for salaries, there would be no Crimean operation to speak of. A witness to the proceedings describes “two different co-ordinate systems” in a clinch: “No common language, even if holding back from direct conflict.”

But it seems there's a lot of angst within military command ranks over the defense chief's reluctance to try and achieve parity with Russia in terms of conventional military hardware, which he might reason is a lose-lose pursuit anyway.

In the meantime, Zelensky had started the week by saying, "The Cabinet of Ministers needs to be renewed." He explained that "Each priority area of foreign policy will be assigned to a specific person with substantial experience who is capable of implementing what we agree on at the leaders’ level and what the Ukrainian people expect," he described further of an impending reshuffle. Who is next on the chopping block?

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