Protests broke out all across Ukraine over President Volodymyr Zelensky’s July 15 dismissal of Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s defense minister. He is associated with the successful use of drones to take the fight to oil refineries and other military targets in Russia and occupied Crimea, as well as behind the front in southeastern Ukraine. Zelensky responded to the protests by overhauling Kyiv’s military command and reshuffling other posts. Street actions continued into a second week in several cities demanding Federov’s reinstatement.
The stakes are high as the Ukrainian people’s defensive war to defend their national sovereignty against Moscow’s invasion extends well into its fifth year. In stark contrast to Russia, where anti-war protests are repressed by the Kremlin, the actions in Ukraine, drawing in students and war veterans, took place without government interference.
The political crisis erupted as Moscow’s bombing of Ukrainian cities took a near-record civilian toll in June. At the same time, its human wave efforts at taking more territory in eastern Ukraine have met with little success, while Ukrainian forces have made gains.
Within a week, Kyiv replaced its two top Soviet-trained generals with younger commanders, battle-tested in the current war. Zelensky appointed Mykhailo Drapatyi, a respected veteran of the 2014-15 Donbas war, as the new commander-in-chief. Drapatyi had supported Federov in the public dispute with his predecessor, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi.
Fedorov has declined all Zelensky’s offers of alternative posts, saying, “No other role carries the actual authority to combat procurement corruption” or to affect the course of the war.
Fedorov wanted more spending on drone innovation; steps to combat deeply entrenched corruption in arms contracts; ending unnecessary losses among Ukrainian troops; and avoiding favoritism in reinforcing front-line units. He also introduced popular reforms, like higher pay and more limited terms for soldiers at the front, a step toward relieving social tensions over forced conscription.
One protester in Kyiv, 42-year-old Mila Timchenko, told NPR July 22 that Syrskyi, an experienced officer, was integral to Ukraine’s defense early in the war, “but times have changed, the way wars are being fought has changed.”
Kyrylo, a combat medic, told the July 22 Kyiv Independent he hoped Drapatyi’s appointment would mean less sacrifice of front-line troops in pursuit of “media victories.” He added, “We can already see motivation improving.”
Protests over Soviet-style corruption
When Ukraine declared independence in 1991 as the Soviet Union disintegrated, capitalists were emerging from the disintegrating bureaucratic caste to seize chunks of the newly privatized factories and other enterprises, often in collaboration with forces from the U.S. and European powers. The capitalist government in Kyiv inherited crude, pervasive corruption from the Stalinized state, as well as the bureaucratic command system of the Soviet military.
In 2014, the popular Maidan uprising by hundreds of thousands of working people in Ukraine overthrew the brutal pro-Moscow regime of Viktor Yanukovych. They rejected not only direct Russian imperial domination, but also the corruption and profiteering that came with it.
But Ukraine remains a capitalist country, whose industrial and banking owners dominate the economy and seek sway in the country’s politics.
A year ago, despite Ukraine’s wartime martial law, large demonstrations erupted against Zelensky’s move to curtail the power of two government “anti-corruption” agencies. Within days, he was forced to retreat.
At the same time, the dedication of Ukraine’s working people and their unions to defend national sovereignty leads to sacrifice and determination to defeat Moscow’s bloody assault.
Recently, Ukraine has used its own long-range drones to repeatedly strike Russia’s oil and gas sites, causing a fuel crisis. Its mid-range drones have hit supply routes for the Russian army in occupied parts of Ukraine, as well as vessels from Russia’s shadow fleet in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.
With Russia’s parliamentary elections in September, the Kremlin has clamped down harder on anti-war voices, blocking candidates who show signs of opposing Moscow’s increasingly unpopular military operation in Ukraine.
In recent weeks, candidates from the liberal Yabloko Party, with the campaign slogan, “For Peace and Freedom,” have been systematically barred from both federal and regional elections.
Boris Nadezhdin stood on an anti-war platform in the 2024 presidential elections. He attracted thousands of people standing in line to support his candidacy before electoral authorities barred his running. Now he has been stopped from running again.
“People trust Putin and United Russia less and less because the war has come to them,” Nadezhdin told the July 28 Washington Post, referring to Ukraine’s successful drone attacks. “Every day, warehouses and oil bases are exploding. People are dying. And in this situation they are trying to get rid of the most visible political actors, like me and Yabloko, who speak against the war.”
Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, one of Moscow’s few allies, hasn’t openly criticized the war until now. He urged Putin July 25 to “freeze” the war in Ukraine, a sign of the Kremlin’s increased isolation.
Tokayev said it was a tragedy since young people from “the brotherly peoples of Russia and Ukraine” are dying.