{"id":18967,"date":"2026-07-20T15:30:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T15:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/18967\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T15:30:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T15:30:20","slug":"zelenskys-defence-shake-up-backfires-as-ousted-minister-fedorov-denounces-army-chief-and-reveals-11-failings-in-ukraines-army-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/18967\/","title":{"rendered":"Zelensky\u2019s defence shake\u2011up backfires as ousted minister Fedorov denounces army chief and reveals 11 failings in Ukraine\u2019s army \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sacked Ukrainian defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov has used a press conference to identify 11 problems facing Ukraine\u2019s military. One of them, he said, was the constant misleading of the public.<\/p>\n

On Thursday (16 July), Ukraine\u2019s parliament approved a new government by a comfortable majority, to be led by executive Serhii Koretskyi. Koretskyi, who previously ran several energy companies, will replace Yulia Svyrydenko after around a year in office.<\/p>\n

However, MPs did not vote on the position that interested Ukrainians most: that of defence minister, from which president Volodymyr Zelensky had dismissed Fedorov.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As the next parliamentary sitting will not take place until 18 August because of the summer recess, Ukraine will be without a defence minister for more than a month.<\/p>\n

Zelensky said on Thursday that acting head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Yevhen Khmara, would temporarily<\/a> perform the role. <\/p>\n

Khmara has a reputation in Ukraine as a war hero who played a major part in the liberation of Snake Island in 2022.<\/p>\n

Although even the president\u2019s critics have welcomed his nomination, Kyiv remains focused on Fedorov\u2019s departure. At a time when Ukraine is performing increasingly well on the battlefield, it has unexpectedly entered a political crisis.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a president, not a tsar,\u201d complained one of the demonstrators who took part in the Kyiv protest on 16 July. He told Ukrainska Pravda<\/a> the public expects dialogue from the authorities and an explanation for dismissals. He therefore sees chaotic government reshuffles without explanation as a threat to stability both at the front and in the rear.<\/p>\n

Ukrainians protested in several cities against the dismissal of the former minister, who had built a reputation as a successful reformer.<\/p>\n

Fedorov speaks about his departure<\/p>\n

Zelensky continues to face sharp criticism from prominent activists, commentators and civil-society representatives. For example, journalist Illia Ponomarenko described<\/a> Fedorov\u2019s dismissal as \u201cone of the biggest mistakes of his life\u201d and \u201cthe moment when he revealed his dark side\u201d.<\/p>\n

And so last Thursday, Fedorov himself spoke about his departure at a press conference lasting more than an hour<\/a>. He spent much of it listing his achievements, including claiming that Russians had lost access to Starlink technology thanks to his talks with Elon Musk.<\/p>\n

However, part of Fedorov\u2019s briefing was rather dramatic: the outgoing defence minister spoke about problems in Ukraine\u2019s military and his conflict with Oleksandr Syrsky, commander-in-chief of the armed forces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sacked Ukrainian defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov has used a press conference to identify 11 problems facing Ukraine\u2019s military.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[13,22,6175,5147,6173,5145,20,6174,5146,21],"class_list":["post-18967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-typedefinedterm","tag-identifier24","tag-identifier4391","tag-identifier4401","tag-namedefence","tag-nameeu-and-the-world","tag-nameukraine","tag-termcodedefence","tag-termcodeeu-and-the-world","tag-termcodeukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}