Why has Zelenskyy sacked Ukraine’s most senior defence figures?

0:02Sky News. The full story first.

0:11President Zelensky has sacked both Ukraine's defence minister and its top general after a bitter argument over how to win the war with Russia. This is why.

0:26How does a banana trigger a CIA-backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow.

1:03In the middle of a war, Vladimir Zelensky has removed the two men at the very top of Ukraine's defence effort. First, Mikhail Fedorov, the young tech-obsessed defence minister credited with transforming Ukraine's use of drones. Then, Alexander Sersky, the veteran commander-in-chief who helped save Kiev and retake Kharkiv. Go on, Kriya! His critics accuse him of fighting a modern war with an old-fashioned military mindset. Zelensky initially backed the general. Thousands of Ukrainians took to the streets in support of the minister. Now, both men are gone. Zelensky was the hero of the 21st century in 2022, the man who stood up to Russia.

1:47You know, he will go down as a great hero of the era. But the longer he stays in power, the more autocratic he's likely to become. So is this wartime chaos an overdue generational change or the beginning of a new strategy? Professor Michael Clarke is here once again to help us work it all out.

2:07Michael, things are looking pretty confusing in and around Kiev at the moment. Just explain what has taken place. We have seen not one, but two very, very senior figures, figures central to the war effort being unceremoniously booted. Who are they? What's important about this, Neil, is not that prime ministers and presidents can change their senior commanders and leaders. That happens all the time in war. But that these changes are being influenced and partly driven by protests on the streets against Zelensky's decision making. And he's giving into those protests exactly as he did a year ago when they tried to close down the anti-corruption agencies who were getting too close to the people near to him.

2:46Not him, but the people near to him. And when he tried to close them down, there were protests on the street, big protests, and he backed off. And those anti-corruption agencies are now more powerful than they've ever been before. And they're going for people at the top. And here is Zelensky now being influenced by protests on the streets. This is an astonishing, if you like, exercise in fairly direct democracy. But it does create uncertainty. It's pushing Zelensky into decisions that he would not otherwise have made. But he is now making those decisions. And what we're seeing is a changing of the guard at the top, which is partly generational change.

3:20So the defense minister has been sacked and replaced by somebody else, but very popular defense minister Fedorov. Sersky, the armed forces chief, who is very close to Zelensky, he's been sacked. Zelensky really didn't want to part with him, but he's had to. So he's been sacked as well. And he's been replaced by one of the new guard, Drapatchi. And Drapatchi is very close to Fedorov. So Fedorov, who's now out of the government, is kind of represented by the new chief of defence staff, who is Drapatchi. And that's where we are now. There have been other changes as well. I mean, the prime minister was replaced a couple of weeks ago.

3:55Zelensky has been refreshing his government, he says, for the new challenges ahead. And that's not unreasonable. But what's astonishing are these street protests that he cannot ignore. A lot of names there. I mean, let's start with Fedorov. For those who don't know him, he's only been in the post for what? Six months. Six months. But he has had a significant impact on this war. Yeah. I mean, he was a friend of Zelensky's. I mean, he helped get Zelensky elected in 2019 through the manipulation of social media. Fedorov is a tech bro, and he's got all that sort of swaggering arrogance of the tech bros because he knows his value.

4:26He's able to change things. And he has had a big effect, not so much on the frontline war, but on supplying units with what they need, on creating more robotics, more drones. I mean, gearing up the whole defense industry towards the way they can best fight the war as a modern industrial war. It's not only him, of course, but he's driven big, big changes at the defense ministry. And he was the fourth defence minister. So now today we've got the fifth defence minister since 2022. So to go through five defence ministries in four years shows that there's something been, as we're not right about defence in 2022, which somebody, Fedorov, was trying to put right.

5:09But he was trying to put it right in a way that broke an awful lot of China. As defence minister, he went to a public conference and slagged off the chief of the armed forces in public. I mean, in Britain, that would not be acceptable. In Britain, people would say to the Prime Minister, one of these people has got to go. You can't have a defence minister slagging off at a conference the chief of the armed services. What is the source of the argument between the two, between Fedorov and General Sersky? I mean, let's say at first glance, they look like vastly different individuals. As you see, one's a 34, 35-year-old tech man.

5:41And Sersky is 60. Yeah. And a product of the Soviet military. That's right. Sersky was trained in the Soviet military. So he tends to think in a Soviet military way. But that's not to say he's not without his victories. I mean, he saved Kiev in 2022. He was the architect of the successful Operation Kharkiv in the autumn of 2022, when they drove the Russians right back the other side of the Oskar River. That was all him. And he was the architect of the intervention in Kursk when the Ukrainians counterpunched by invading Kursk. And that actually held off the Russians for quite a long time. So he's got a lot of battle honors to his credit, but he's a conventional general.

6:20And at the front, he's sometimes called a butcher because they say he doesn't look after the lives of his troops. I mean, like the old Soviet generals, like Russian generals now, they just throw troops into the assault. I think that's a bit unfair on him because there are times in war when you've just got to hold the ground or try to hold the ground. There are times when a commander has got to say, I know we're going to lose a lot of men in this operation, but there's no alternative. We've got to do that. And so Sersky gets a bit of a bad press because of some of the unpopular decisions he's taken, but he's not as popular on the front, say, as Zeluzhny, who was his predecessor.

6:53And Zeluzhny was very popular in the armed services. But Zelensky used to say to Zeluzhny, you know, why can't we be more assertive? Why can't we push forward? And Zeluzhny was saying, look, it cost us too many men. I think Zelensky thought that Zeluzny was too soft, that he was too sentimental about his men, even though he was very, very popular in the army, as you might imagine. But Ukraine then found itself in a situation where the defence minister, who is technically in charge, isn't he? I mean, the civilians control the military. General Sersky may sit atop it, but, you know, the defence minister comes above him.

7:24The defence ministry is telling him to do things. And he's what, point blank, refusing to do things? It's not clear quite what the arguments were all about, except that they did clash. I mean, frequently, to the point where even Zelensky said when he was justifying getting rid of Fedorov, he said they couldn't be in the same room together. That, you know, the chief of the armed forces and the minister of defense couldn't be in the same room. That's what the president said. And that's astonishing. And you've got to say, well, Mr. President, that's part of your fault, isn't it? You know, you're supposed to preside over this team.

7:53Now, of course, he's been away a lot because Zelensky's got to get out and about in the world. He's got to keep up the international pressure. He's got to keep up support for Ukraine. So he's not there a lot of the time. And while he's not there, you know, other things are happening. But in general, I mean, trying to not just put more drones onto the front line, he's trying to remake the whole of the industrial complex of Ukraine in a completely different way were good for him. But to do it quickly in the middle of a war, to create results in 18 months or two years in a transition that you would say would otherwise take a decade, that creates problems.

8:27And Sersky was not without support. Remember, the members of the other armed services, the Navy, the Air Force and the militia, the sort of territorial force, they all supported Sersky because they saw that in his methods, there is a certain sort of inevitability. Now, this is not just an argument about the immediate tactics in the war. This is an argument about whether you can transform Ukraine really quickly by overturning things and getting rid of an awful lot of people. And there's cronyism and there's some corruption and there's patronage. The final point is that Fedorov was identified with being absolutely anti-corruption.

8:59I mean, he may be arrogant and intolerant, but he is a man of integrity. That's his reputation, that he's not on the take, he's not corrupt, and that he pushes against corrupt people. He hates corruption. and that's what makes him popular on the streets. Well, that was what I was going to say. I mean, Fedorov goes, sacked unceremoniously. We have day after day of protests on the streets against a wartime president's decision-making process and then ultimately the Ukrainian president decides to get rid of the general with whom he had a problem in the first place. I just wonder if there might be a political dimension to this because if there have been days of protests in support of Fedorov, there is a potential political challenger to Zelensky at some point in the future.

9:40Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I think Fedorov hasn't even made a secret of that. He thinks that he is a good next president. I think a lot of people think that too. So Zelensky is a bit frightened of him. They were friends. They were friends. But undoubtedly, I mean, Zelensky is a bit older than Fedorov. And Fedorov sees himself as a future president, and maybe he will be. And Zelensky has tried to keep him in the tent. He said, look, I've had to take this job off you because of the way things are. Can't carry on the way we were. And that's clearly the case. He's offered him lots of roles. And Fedorov has turned them all down because it's easy to be given a high-sounding role and then ignored.

10:17And what Fedorov is saying is, I want to be in the government. I want a proper post inside the government, commensurate with my skill and my achievement. And that really means going back to being Minister of Defence. I suppose you could make him foreign minister, but why would you have a tech bro as foreign minister, which is all diplomacy? You need somebody who's good with the mechanics of production, which is what he's doing. And Fedorov wants to be in a position to challenge Zelensky at some point, I think, when there are elections, maybe in a ceasefire, perhaps next year sometime, whatever.

11:08I'm Ed Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow.

11:36In terms of the war itself, getting rid of your defence minister, getting rid of the head of the armed forces, what effect, if any, will that have? Well, in terms of the armed forces, it may not have that big an effect, because Drapati, who is the new head of the armed forces, who was the chief of the general staff, I mean, he now moves, and his deputy now moves into his role. So there's continuity. There's some continuity, yeah. And what Drapatchi has said is that we will continue with the offensive, the strategic offensive, which is this 40-day offensive that they announced about, what, 20, 25 days ago now.

12:09And that offensive will continue, which is a heavy offensive against Russian shipping. They've effectively, in the last two and a half weeks or so, they've destroyed or disabled more than 120 Russian ships in the Sea of Azov. They prevented any movement in the Sea of Azov. So that cuts off Crimea. It stops the Russians getting the grain that they've taken from Ukraine, which they now regard as their grain, but Ukraine says it's all stolen, which technically it is. It stops them getting out through the Kersh Strait, out to world markets in the Mediterranean. And they've had a big effect. So this strategic offensive to isolate Crimea, to stop Russian shipping in the Sea of Azov has been pretty successful.

12:46and then the offensive to deprive Russia of petrol by attacking the refineries. As far away as Omsk, which is over a thousand miles away from the Ukrainian border. Omsk is the biggest refinery in Russia and they've attacked it more than once. So the ability of the Ukrainians to create strategic pain for the Russians is now, and that's something that's developed only the last two or three months. That will continue and we'll see how the Russians react to that. So if the strategy remains the same, what was the point of holiday? I think the point was that tensions had built up, so they had to be resolved in a different way.

13:21But it doesn't reflect well on Zelensky, because ultimately, as president, isn't it his job to ensure that the people that he puts in key positions get on? Or if they don't get on, they get on with the job? Yeah, it is. And it does reflect on him. But I mean, you know, leaders, no leaders in wartime are perfect and leaders get tired. I mean, Churchill, during the Second World War, sacked many generals for failure in campaigns. He constantly rotated his generals until he ended up with a group that in 1944, 45, he believed. But even Montgomery, who was the most famous British general, twice was almost sacked.

13:54So this sort of thing isn't uncommon, that you do see senior, well, the top of the military and the top of the civilian military going mid-combat. Oh, yeah, you do. You do. And again, remember, I mean, in Britain, I mean, we didn't have an election between 1935 and 1945. And even in the Second World War, we had three prime ministers. We started with Chamberlain, then we had Churchill. And before the war was over, we had Attlee. So you had three prime ministers within the Second World War and no election for 10 years. So wartime is extraordinary. And there is lots of churn in wartime. And leaders get tired and they get autocratic.

14:30And that sort of thing happens. You're absolutely right. It's not a good look. And, you know, Zelensky was the hero of the 21st century in 2022, the man who stood up to Russia. You know, he will go down as a great hero of the era. But the longer he stays in power, the more autocratic he's likely to become. He becomes tired. And, you know, his democratic mandate ran out in 2024, May 24. Whilst acknowledging the undoubted successes of both Sersky and Fedorov in their positions. I mean, two big problems remain for Ukraine right now, and that's manpower and ballistic missile defence. And look, if those two couldn't sort it out, who can?

15:06Yeah. The manpower thing is serious because, I mean, one of the things that Sersky was accused of by Fedorov, he said, look, you're creating these brigades. There's nobody in them. You're given these brigades. You've got a skeleton staff and no fighters. And Fedorov also created this sense, look, we can do it by robots. Because already there is evidence that the Ukrainians are holding some of the front line entirely with robots. There is evidence, this is a bit of a symbolic demonstration, but they took some area in the Kinburn Spit down in the Kherson region about 10 days, two weeks ago, entirely with robots.

15:38It was a robotic D-Day. Robot boats crossed onto the Kinburn Spit and forced the Russians to withdraw. There was no human beings involved. It was all robotic. That was a small operation. But honestly, Neil, that's a symbol of things to come in the nature of warfare. And one of the reasons that Fedorov was so popular is with the public. He said, look, he's found ways for us not to put our bodies on the front line, not to send our sons and husbands and boyfriends to serve on the front line and to preserve their lives more. Now, you can overstate that. But one of the issues that the Ukrainians really have is that they're not having enough people prepared to go to the front.

16:15And they are now drafting people unwillingly. Like the Russians, they're pulling them in off the streets. If they belong on the front, they have to go. And there's a lot of young men who are frightened to go out. They're staying at home. They won't be seen around. And Fedorov had tried to do something about that as Minister of Defense. He changed the conditions under which people serve, gave them the prospect of being able to serve their time and come home even in the middle of the war, not have to do anymore. He wasn't very successful. He had a series of ideas which didn't get far enough. But those ideas are now in the public domain.

16:46The public is saying, if you want us to serve, then it's no good just saying you've got to serve until the war is over, because we serve until we die in that case. And that's why virtually nobody is now volunteering. Everybody's been conscripted unwillingly. And that's not a good situation to be in. It's not a good look domestically. That, alongside the sackings of the head of the armed forces and the defence minister, doesn't look good internationally. And in the background, there has always been, largely coming from the United States, key figures in the White House, this accusation that this is a deeply, deeply corrupt country.

17:20Yeah. Two things. One is, yes, it comes off the back of being a Soviet republic. So of course it's deeply corrupt. Of course it is deeply inefficient. Of course it's full of cronyism. That's what the Soviet Union was. And that's what Russia still is, just as it was. The fact that the Ukrainians always talk about corruption doesn't mean to say it's more corrupt. They talk about it a great deal because it informs their lives. The Ukrainians are hypersensitive to corruption. And the two bodies, the two anti-corruption bodies, which Zelensky tried to close down effectively a year ago, are now up and running.

17:51They're more powerful than they've ever been before. And they're going for people at the top. They went for Yermak, and they got him, who's chief of staff. They went for Mindish, who's disappeared now. Timur Mindish, who was deeply corrupt, very close to Zelensky. And he cleared off with a lot of money. And that scandal still hangs on Ukraine. But I'd say this, when people in the States say, oh, look how corrupt Ukraine is, I'd say, first of all, pal, I think Ukraine objectively is less corrupt than the United States is these days. You really think that? I honestly think you can construct an argument, a sensible argument, which says Ukraine talk about corruption because it bothers them.

18:26You guys have stopped talking about it because it doesn't bother you anymore. You've normalized it. I think there's a sensible argument to say Ukraine is less corrupt than the United States. And final point on this, even if it were corrupt, even if Ukraine has got all sorts of things wrong with it as a state, we should still support it because it was attacked out of the blue by its neighbor. It is still the subject, it's still a victim of mindless imperialist aggression, which threatens the rest of us. So whatever sort of state Ukraine is, it deserves our support. And in reality, what I think we see in Ukraine is a messy democracy.

19:02The fact that people on the streets are telling the government what they really think and the government has no alternative but to do it, that's an exercise in direct democracy. It's messy. It may not work out all that well. But Ukraine is working its way, stumbling its way towards a modern capitalist, free trading, liberal democracy of the sort that we've become used to in Western Europe. We take it for granted that we are all these things. Ukraine is trying to approach that. And it's getting there. Michael, thanks very much.

19:37And that is your lot for today. Do get in touch with your thoughts. You always have plenty when Michael is on the podcast. At why at sky.uk. We're also in the market for a few ideas for the next few weeks over the summer. So send them in as well. We're back again tomorrow.

20:03How does a banana trigger a CIA-backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow.