Former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov is holding a standoff with the Cabinet he belonged to until just a month ago. The young politician and entrepreneur, 35 years old, has recorded a statement of just over nine minutes that he distributed this Tuesday on the YouTube platform, in which he calls for elections to be held. “Russia cannot take democracy hostage,” Fedorov states. The former Defense Minister, who enjoys great popularity despite having been in charge of the portfolio for only seven months, admits that the process of calling elections is “complex.” “We must find a legal, safe, and realistic mechanism that allows Ukraine to restore a full democratic process,” he continues in the video.
Martial law, imposed since the start of the large Russian offensive in February 2022, prohibits holding elections while the rule is in effect. The Ukrainian Parliament renewed it last month until October 31. The text of this law also states that the main officials of the Administration, starting with the president — whose current term, Volodymyr Zelensky, ended in May 2024 — will maintain their responsibilities and functions until the end of the exceptional period and the holding of new elections.
Fedorov himself, dressed in black as he used to do while in office, points out three major challenges to calling the vote: the vote of the military at the front, that of citizens in combat zones, and that of those eligible voters who fled their homes (about 10 million people among internally displaced persons and refugees who crossed the border). “But that complexity does not mean impossibility,” says the former Defense Minister who, since July 15, the date he was informed of his dismissal, has multiplied his public appearances.
After four and a half years of war and with Moscow daily destroying both the country’s civilian infrastructure and the lives of dozens of civilians (about 17,000 dead since February 2022), the call for elections, although it divides Ukrainians, is not among the priorities of a population that longs, above all, for the end of violence.
In February 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump demanded that Zelensky call elections in one of the first clashes between the two leaders. In a conversation with EL PAÍS last year, the chairman of Ukraine’s Central Election Commission (CEC), Oleg Didenko, said that Ukraine would need about three months to organize elections once the war ended, a scenario that, with negotiations between Moscow and Kiev stalled, seems distant.
Fedorov’s dismissal, whom many Ukrainians recognize for the technological approach he brought to the battlefield — compared to the more conservative former Chief of the General Staff Oleksandr Syrskyi — and his fight against corruption, led hundreds of people to organize protests in the streets that, more than a month later, still persist. The protesters express their anger daily at the continuous changes in the government leadership and demand, especially the younger ones, that the asymmetric war against Russia be maintained through the massive use of drones that Fedorov promoted. In this way, the infantry would reduce the number of casualties.
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Thus, with this public support, the former Defense Minister takes advantage of the recording to launch several jabs at Zelensky’s Cabinet. “People cannot live indefinitely in a state where they do not understand why certain decisions are made,” he says in the video over images of gatherings in downtown Kiev, the country’s capital. “We have a systemic governance crisis,” Fedorov continues.
Anti-corruption operation
“A country fighting a war for its existence cannot function like this,” says the former minister before fully denouncing corruption, while a photo of Andrii Yermak, who was Zelensky’s right-hand man and was removed last November due to his involvement in a major corruption scandal, is shown. “In times of war, stolen money means a drone that is not purchased, ammunition that does not reach the front, an electronic system that is not installed, a vehicle that does not evacuate a wounded person (…), our capacity to survive and win.”
On this same Wednesday, agents from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) launched a new anti-corruption operation in which, according to the Ukrainian channel Suspilne, deputy Vadym Stolar and the deputy head of the President’s Office Iryna Mudra are involved. Following the first news of the investigation, Zelensky dismissed Mudra from her position.
On the same day that Fedorov launched this challenge to Zelensky’s leadership, the president appointed Yevhen Khmara, a former senior official of the Ukrainian intelligence services, to take the reins of the Ministry of Defense, which he was already leading on an interim basis. The Ukrainian Parliament, in which the president’s party holds a majority, ratified Khmara’s appointment as the new Defense Minister this Wednesday.
