Ousted defence minister lays bare rift at heart of Ukraine's war effort

KYIV/LONDON, July 16 - An extraordinary outburst by outgoing Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov laid bare a rift at the heart of Ukraine's war effort on Thursday, pitting a new guard pushing technology as the way to defeat Russia against the head of the armed forces.

The 35-year-old, who was ousted this week in a government overhaul just six months into his job, aimed a blistering tirade at General Oleksandr Syrskyi, whom he accused of stirring up intrigue, blocking his initiatives and sabotaging his work.

It is the first time the tensions have burst into the public eye.

Fedorov said he had agreed to make things work with Syrskyi after unsuccessfully petitioning President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to replace him, but that Ukraine's top general had taken to deliberately undermining him behind the scenes.

"We hit a situation where all the initiatives we proposed were blocked, and Syrskyi, considering all the problems we discussed today, is not ready to look (me) in the eye and talk openly about the problems," Fedorov said.

He accused Syrskyi of presiding over a dysfunctional culture of lies, poorly organised units and lack of personal responsibility in the military - astonishing rhetoric to level at the man who has led the Ukrainian armed forces since February 2024.

"Instead of working out how to asymmetrically defeat Russia ... he has worked out how to split the country," he told a news conference that came just as lawmakers were meeting to discuss the composition of a new cabinet.

After the attack, Syrskyi issued a short statement in which he thanked Fedorov for his work as defence minister and said that Ukraine needed to focus on the war. He did not comment on any of the substance of Fedorov's barbed remarks.

TECH-SAVVY LEADER

The acrimonious remarks point both to the mounting internal pressure inside Ukraine's defence forces more than four years since Russia's full-scale invasion and the divergent visions for how to prosecute the war in the drone era.

Years of attritional fighting have catalysed a revolution in warfare, especially in the use of drones for everything from striking troops on the battlefield to delivering supplies and evacuating the wounded.

Fedorov, a totemic figure for Ukrainians who see the use of technology as key to winning the war, has overseen a ramp-up in production of middle-range and deep strike drones and smoothed out defence procurement.

His tenure coincided with a visible improvement in Ukraine's battlefield position after years on the back foot, as well as a spectacular campaign of drone strikes that have battered oil infrastructure and military targets deep inside Russia.

Hundreds of Ukrainians who came out to support Fedorov at a spontaneous and rare wartime demonstration in Kyiv on Thursday looked overwhelmingly to be men and women under 30 years old.

In his remarks, Fedorov paid tribute to Syrskyi's past military triumphs but said that "the war has totally changed" and that drones were driving a rapid cycle of evolution.

Syrskyi, 60, is a Soviet-educated commander who received his military education in Moscow in the 1980s.

The top commander, who uses the call sign "Snow Leopard", took the helm of Ukraine's ground forces in 2019. He led the defence of Kyiv in 2022 and a lightning counteroffensive in Kharkiv region later that year.

He took charge of the armed forces in February 2024 after Zelenskiy ousted his predecessor, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi.

'A GREAT EVIL'

Zelenskiy confirmed that there was a rift between the two men as he made some of his first public comments, adding that he was not in a position to say how it would be resolved.

Alongside the role of technology and notably drones, championed by Fedorov, a key focus for Ukraine's military has been the shortage of infantry soldiers, something neither the military nor the defence ministry has been able to overcome.

Zelenskiy said that Ihor Klymenko, the interior minister tipped as a possible successor to Fedorov, might be well placed to deal with the problem of draft officers dragging civilian men off onto buses to serve in the armed forces.

The phenomenon - popularly known as "bus-ification" - is deeply unpopular and has stoked social tensions throughout the war, as the armed forces have sought to keep up the inflow of new soldiers while fighting a bigger military.

For his part, Fedorov seemed to leave open the possibility that he could be reinstated as defence minister although it was unclear how that could happen.

Some military figures came out in support of Fedorov, such as Mykhailo Drapatyi, a popular commander who was land forces chief from 2024 to 2025 before being demoted by Syrskyi.

Pavlo Yelizarov, a deputy commander of Ukraine's air force who was appointed by Fedorov to counter Russian drone attacks, said he was stepping down in response to Fedorov's dismissal. He called it "a great evil" for Ukraine's defence. REUTERS