Volodymyr Zelensky must have felt a peculiar sense of déjà vu as thousands of Ukrainians chanted ‘Shame!’ beneath the windows of his office in central Kyiv yesterday. Exactly one year ago, they gathered to protest Zelensky’s attempt to strip Ukraine’s two key anti-corruption institutions of their independence, forcing him to back down. This time, Ukrainians rallied against their President’s decision to fire Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, holding cardboard signs demanding that he be reinstated.

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Fedorov, 35, is the only survivor from the President’s original team, having outlasted every other minister Zelensky appointed since taking office in 2019. Fedorov’s main job had been the digital transformation of the state, before the full-scale war in 2022 expanded his responsibilities to defence procurement. He was responsible for launching the ‘Army of Drones’ programme to encourage Ukrainian companies to make millions of drones and train thousands of operators, a move that changed the Russia-Ukraine war and all future ones forever.

His promotion to defence minister six months ago helped turn the tide of the war in Ukraine’s favour. From disabling Starlink satellites for Russian forces to opening a drone market and implementing AI, overhauling the corrupt procurement system and developing the production of medium-range strike drones that set Russian logistics on fire to isolate occupied Crimea, Fedorov proved to be the most effective defence minister Ukraine ever had. 

But most importantly, Fedorov offered a vision for how to force Russia to end the war, something Zelensky and the army chief Oleksandr........

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