{"id":59825,"date":"2026-07-25T04:03:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T04:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=59825"},"modified":"2026-07-25T04:03:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T04:03:28","slug":"zelensky-tries-to-fix-crisis-over-removal-of-defence-minister-and-counts-the-cost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=59825","title":{"rendered":"Zelensky tries to fix crisis over removal of defence minister and counts the cost"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">BBC:   <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With an acting defence minister in place and a new commander-in-chief in charge of the military, Ukraine&#8217;s recent political crisis is over, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not so fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The political fallout from President Volodymyr Zelensky&#8217;s 15 July decision not to re-appoint Mykhailo Fedorov as defence minister, as part of a cabinet reshuffle, continues to reverberate about Kyiv and beyond, even as air raid sirens wail and Russian drones and missiles are intercepted overhead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fedorov&#8217;s mostly young supporters are still mounting daily street protests, demanding that Zelensky reinstate the popular young innovator widely credited with driving much of Ukraine&#8217;s recent technological innovation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On Thursday, Fedorov said he had rejected Zelensky&#8217;s offers of alternative posts in government, saying there were only three positions worth having to influence the course of the war: minister of defence, commander-in-chief of the military or president of Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;If you don&#8217;t have a ministry under you, you don&#8217;t have a budget,&#8221; ex-deputy defence minister Alina Frolova said, &#8220;and you don&#8217;t actually have the authority to do something.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fedorov&#8217;s reference to the presidency did not go unnoticed. Was this the first public sign that the ousted minister sees himself as a rival to Zelensky?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One former defence official suggested he became a real candidate for the presidency the moment he was dismissed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But with the country at war and no elections scheduled \u2013 Ukraine&#8217;s constitution still prevents them in wartime \u2013 how useful is it to put your head above the political parapet so far in advance?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;He&#8217;s being childish,&#8221; one opposition MP told me, on condition that he remained anonymous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;He&#8217;s looking to further his political career, which I think is just stupid in the circumstances where we are.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The president&#8217;s supporters say Zelensky has gone to great lengths to resolve the crisis, especially over the question of who to replace the unpopular commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Eventually he decided on Maj Gen Mykhailo Drapatyi, 43, a highly respected former commander of Ukraine&#8217;s land forces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BBC: With an acting defence minister in place and a new commander-in-chief in charge of the military, Ukraine&#8217;s recent political crisis is over, right? Not so fast. The political fallout from President Volodymyr Zelensky&#8217;s 15 July decision not to re-appoint Mykhailo Fedorov as defence minister, as part of a cabinet reshuffle, continues to reverberate about Kyiv and beyond, even as air raid sirens wail and Russian drones and missiles are intercepted overhead. Fedorov&#8217;s mostly young supporters are still mounting daily street protests, demanding that Zelensky reinstate the popular young innovator widely credited with driving much of Ukraine&#8217;s recent technological innovation&#8230;. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59826,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59825"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59827,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59825\/revisions\/59827"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/59826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}