Ukraine is ousting its pro-tech defense minister after just 6 months. Troops fear it's a monumental victory for Russia.

• Ukraine's millennial defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, is out after just 6 months on the job.
• His removal has shocked the country, which saw him as a counter to military corruption and bureaucracy.
• Fedorov sought to radically transform Ukraine's military into a modern, high-tech fighting force.

Mykhailo Fedorov, the 35-year-old reformist who launched sweeping changes in the Ukrainian military this year, is out as the country's defense minister.

"It was a great honor to serve the Ukrainian people as the Minister of Defense," he wrote in a statement announcing his resignation on Wednesday. Fedorov was appointed to the role in January.

The announcement came amid reports of a severe rift between him and Kyiv's top military brass, including the commander in chief, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, who chafed under Fedorov's maverick approach to overhauling the force and procurement structures.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reshuffled his government this week, and Fedorov's name was missing from the new line-up. The president has not officially announced the minister's dismissal; however, Fedorov said at a Thursday press briefing in Kyiv that he had been pushed out. Minister of the Interior Ihor Klymenko is expected to succeed him.

"I had a candid conversation with the president yesterday," Fedorov told reporters. "He offered me the role of adviser or to find some other way for me to remain on the team. I declined the adviser role."

The surprise decision to remove Fedorov as defense minister has been deeply unpopular in Ukraine, where soldiers and civilians alike see him as a desperately needed catalyst for reform that could swing the war in Ukraine's favor.

On Thursday morning, rare wartime mass protests erupted in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Dnipro, and other major cities as thousands gathered to call for the decision's reversal.

Dissent has spread to Ukraine's state-run media outlet, United24 Media, which said on Thursday that it was pausing all publications in protest of Fedorov's removal.

The minister's dismissal will be finalized once the Ukrainian parliament votes in Klymenko as his replacement, which is expected to happen on Thursday or Friday.

"If Fedorov is removed, it means the supply of our army will stagnate, there will be fewer drones, much less meaningful decisions," Dmytro Koziatynskyi, a former combat medic for the Da Vinci Wolves 1st Assault Regiment, told Business Insider.

Koziatynskyi, who now works for the nonprofit YourFuture, was one of the first activists to call for protests in Kyiv. He said the crowd on Thursday appeared to number in the thousands and was larger than the protests in July 2025.

Demonstrations on a similar scale this time last year pushed Zelenskyy and his government to backtrack on a parliamentary bill that would have taken power away from Ukraine's anti-corruption bodies.

Alex, an officer in Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces who asked to be identified only by his first name for security reasons, characterized the dismissal as "a big mistake," commending Fedorov for his efforts to overhaul the military with sweeping changes to tackle corruption, present new contracts, and encourage digitalization.

"Fedorov started to change a lot of mechanisms and rules," Alex told Business Insider. "And he was on the right track."

The president's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Fedorov's dismissal, the protests, or the concerns raised by troops.

Why is Fedorov popular?

Fedorov, previously the minister for digital transformation, is known for his urgent, Silicon Valley-style approach to implementing radical change in a rapidly evolving war.

His tenure as the country's defense minister coincided with a series of wins for Ukraine. This year, due in part to innovative mid-range drone strikes on enemy logistics, Russia's battlefield momentum not only stalled but reversed,with its forces losing ground for the first time in years. Ukraine also intensified its long-range drone campaign against Russia's oil industry.

"For Russia, it is good," a Ukrainian officer in an electronic warfare unit said of Fedorov's dismissal. He also spoke to Business Insider on the condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Charged with transforming and aligning Ukraine's Soviet-like military structure with NATO standards, Fedorov subjected ministry officials to lie-detector tests and uncovered some $6.7 billion in overspending through a corruption investigation.

In June, his ministry announced an overhaul of the salary and bonus system for soldiers, raising the pay of assault infantry to up to $10,270 a month and pushing for more foreign fighters to fill the ranks.

Over the last six months, Fedorov aggressively increased funding for combat drones and cheaper tools, such as pickup trucks and remotely operated buggies, and introduced a slew of new programs to alleviate bureaucratic and logistical issues for front-line units.

These actions have made him wildly popular among Ukraine's warfighters. One drone unit commander for the Dovbush Hornets in Donetsk told Business Insider that removing Fedorov was a "huge mistake that will set the army back 1,000 steps."

"The Ukrainian army needs to be modern and high-tech, and with Soviet-style leadership, we will not achieve progress," said the commander, identified only by the call sign "Fierce" for security purposes.

One enlisted soldier who oversees drone experimentation for a Territorial Defense Forces brigade on the southeastern front feared a slowdown in Ukrainian innovation.

"We're upset. We're afraid of a bad impact," he told Business Insider, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Losing Ukraine's trusted drone gurus

One of Fedorov's important early decisions was to appoint advisors regarded as trusted community leaders amid public dissatisfaction with the traditional military brass. With his removal, two of these prominent advisors, Serhii Sternenko and Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov, said on Wednesday that they'd been ousted from their roles.

"I had a lot of access to different systems, and I could analyze the actions of our enemy," wrote Beskrestnov, one of Ukraine's foremost analysts on drone warfare, in a post on his Telegram channel. "Predict his next steps. I won't be able to anymore."

Sternenko, who runs a major fundraising organization for combat drones, said his own removal "undoubtedly reduces the possibilities of helping to qualitatively change the situation in the army with drones."

Fedorov's dismissal has also triggered the exit of at least one top commander. Col. Pavel Yelizarov, deputy commander of Ukraine's air force, submitted his resignation on Thursday, saying that the ousting would "cause numerous casualties and destruction in Ukraine."

Yelizarov, a former TV producer, was the founder of Lasar's Group, an elite drone unit that is credited with destroying $12 billion worth of Russian equipment. He was placed in charge of short-range air defense systems and interceptor drones in January.

"From what I see, Fedorov is the best defense minister so far — the most active and willing to reorganize [the] old corrupted machine," said Alex, the USF officer.

Politics aside, another drone commander in southern Ukraine told Business Insider that chaos in the capital is never good news for those on the front lines.

The turmoil surrounding Fedorov's removal risks sowing division among the troops, said the commander, identified only by his call sign, Fizruk, for security purposes.

"Any unpopular changes, in my personal view, do not strengthen our defense capability right now," he said. "What is happening in society— I observe it because we are defending society at the front, the people of Ukraine — it saddens me that the situation is becoming unstable."

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