Why so many Ukrainians are up in arms over firing of defense minister

The Ukrainian protester looks like many others on Kharkiv’s central square – young and tattooed – who have taken to the streets in the thousands across Ukraine to demand the return of the popular defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov.Mr. Fedorov, dismissed last week after just six months in office by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, amid a schism with the military’s top brass, has been a key architect of Ukraine’s aggressive campaign of deep-strike drone and cruise missile attacks inside Russia.The strikes have given Ukraine badly needed leverage as it targets Russia’s economy and its ability to continue its war against Ukraine. Why We Wrote This Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s dismissal of the popular defense minister, an architect of Ukraine’s effective high-tech warfare, has sparked protests across the country. More than just strategy, youth appears part of his appeal. “I want our minister of defense back because I like it when I wake up and see Russian refineries on fire,” says Yulia Korniienko, a 20-something videographer at the protest in Kharkiv.“With that, our victory is becoming closer, and the freedom for Ukraine is becoming closer, too,” says Yulia, whose tattoos include a portrait of Mr. Zelenskyy, inked three months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. She does not like the president’s latest decision, but expects him to “fix” it.“Because Fedorov has a technological approach, he prefers to fight the war with drones, not at the cost of people’s lives,” she says. “And he is able to provide Ukraine with all the drones needed, [which] can fly thousands of kilometers and destroy Russian oil facilities. That makes Russia weaker, and makes their war effort weaker.”Protesters have given a Friday deadline to Mr. Zelenskyy to restore Mr. Fedorov as defense minister, and to dismiss the army’s commander in chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, instead, according to the Kyiv Independent.The eruption of the rift in the national security ranks is affecting the national mood and the military’s esprit de corps. Public outrage comes as Ukraine has made recent gains, after nearly 4 1/2 years of defending against Russian aggression, largely due to the successful deep-strike attacks. Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor Ukrainians protest the dismissal of Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov in Kharkiv, Ukraine, July 18, 2026. Mr. Fedorov is widely credited with high-tech changes that have given a boost to Ukraine’s war effort against Russia. Many in the Kharkiv crowd also framed the conflict in generational terms. They cast Mr. Fedorov – born in 1991, the year Ukraine achieved its independence from Russia – as an effective, high-tech warrior who waged a successful, asymmetric fight against a stronger Russia. He was also credited with advancing anti-corruption efforts and streamlining defense procurement.Mr. Zelenskyy said he “understands, hears and responds” to the voice of the people, and over the weekend held meetings with Mr. Fedorov, General Syrskyi, and many senior officers.At the protests in Kharkiv, 20 miles from Ukraine’s northeastern border with Russia, as in other cities, protesters held cardboard signs calling for Mr. Fedorov to be reinstated and for General Syrskyi to be sacked.Mr. Fedorov was displaced by an entrenched old guard in the form of General Syrskyi, who protesters say reflects a Soviet-era military culture that accepts high losses of soldiers, abuse, and endemic corruption. Soldiers used the nickname “Butcher” for General Syrskyi because of the high number of casualties incurred during the defense of the eastern city of Bakhmut, early in the war.The two had increasing public clashes, and Mr. Zelenskyy said he had to make a “choice.”After his dismissal, Mr. Fedorov praised the general for “saving” the country in 2022 by leading early liberations of the Kyiv and Kharkiv regions, but said that the war had “changed completely.”“The strangest accusation I’ve heard is that I supposedly ‘don’t want to fight with drones,’” Gen. Syrskyi said Monday in a written statement. “A person who ‘does not want to fight with drones’ does not create the world’s first separate kind of troops of unmanned systems.”Dismissing Mr. Fedorov triggered warnings from soldiers, veterans, and civil society activists alike – including soldiers active on the 800-mile front line with Russia – that Mr. Zelenskyy had made a mistake. Military drone pilots in Sloviansk, in the eastern Donbas region, for example, said they were shocked by the decision. Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor A Ukrainian couple wrapped in national flags carry a sign that reads "Stupid decisions are paid for with human lives," at a protest in Kharkiv against the dismissal of tech-savvy Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. “I’m all in for Fedorov. All of our guys, they are for Fedorov,” says one pilot, who was on a day off from duty. He gave only the name Vlad to comply with military regulations. “They are really unhappy with what’s happening. And we want Syrskyi down, but what can we do? We are only following orders, and we are not going to go against our government.”Another drone pilot, called Vanya, adds: “If it wasn’t for Fedorov, we wouldn’t have such a well-developed system of the drone defense, the system of air reconnaissance, this whole sphere would be underdeveloped.”Indeed, Pavlo Yelizarov, deputy commander of the Ukrainian air force, resigned in protest last week and called Mr. Fedorov’s dismissal a “great evil for the country’s defense capability.”Senior officers echoed those concerns.“History teaches: countries lose not only because of an external enemy. Sometimes they lose much more when they turn the internal fatigue of society into a tool for political manipulations,” Col. Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the 1st Corps Azov of the National Guard, wrote on Facebook. “That is why today it is especially important not to lose the most important thing – mutual trust and dialogue between the state and the people ... without which victory is impossible.”Still, those who know the top players say it is incorrect to draw clear lines of difference.“It is very easy to believe in a simplified ... dualistic picture of the world: Here we have a young, progressive minister who wants to win with drones. And here, old Soviet grandfathers want to kill everyone in assaults,” Mariia Berlinska, a war veteran who founded the Center for Support of Aerial Reconnaissance, as well as Victory Drones, to train drone pilots, wrote on Facebook.“Everything is like in a fairy tale in childhood – here is good, here is evil. ... But the world is more complicated, especially during wars of this scale,” she wrote.In Kharkiv, protesters chanted, “Syrksyi out!” waved signs at passing cars, and noisily lined the underground metro station tunnels during an air raid siren. One couple with Ukrainian flags draped over their shoulders held a sign that read, “Stupid decisions are paid for with human lives.”“We have a whole generation of young people who have never seen the Soviet Union, have never seen Soviet education and propaganda, so they are able to learn something, they are able to make their own decisions, they are able to change the whole country,” says Vladislav Biletskyi, a software engineer in his 20s.“There are so many people my age and even younger, now in the military and fighting for us and for our lives, for our rights,” he says. “Actually, that’s why we are here, to support them.”Oleksandr Naselenko supported reporting for this story.