Gamble against Zelensky backfires for ousted Ukraine defence minister as protests end

KYIV - A bid by ousted Ukrainian defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov to broaden a political fight with President Volodymyr Zelensky by calling for wartime elections appears to have backfired, failing to win over protesters who had demanded his return.

Zelensky’s decision to sack the tech-savvy and reform-minded minister in a government reshuffle in July triggered protests in Kyiv and other cities.

Many of the protesters said the dismissal of the popular young minister was poorly explained and could threaten Ukraine’s war effort against Russia, and continued protests throughout the summer to demand Zelensky reinstate him.

Despite the protests, Parliament on Aug 19 approved a new defence minister chosen by Zelensky and later that day only a few dozen people remained in a central Kyiv square where thousands once joined rare wartime protests.

“When we came out to protest, we did not come with the idea that elections should be held,” 22-year-old Iryna Vasyliaka told Reuters late on Aug 19. “That is not what we were here for.”

Fedorov, who warned late on Aug 18 that Ukraine was facing a crisis of governance, is widely seen as one of a handful of potential challengers to Zelensky’s hold on power in the fifth year of the war triggered by Russia’s 2022 invasion.

But opinion polls show little public appetite for elections in wartime, with Russian airstrikes ravaging towns and cities, hundreds of thousands of troops at the front and millions of compatriots living abroad or under occupation.

Olena Prokopenko, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, said Fedorov had been poised to cast himself as “a statesman, a politician of a new generation” after the war, but miscalculated.

“With this statement, he pretty much played on Ukrainians’ most sensitive pain points,” Prokopenko said.

No feel for the people?

A host of obstacles would need to be overcome for Ukraine to hold wartime elections.

An Aug 5 poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, conducted after the pro-Fedorov protests began, found 57 per cent of Ukrainians want elections to be held only after fighting ends.

“Even amid these protests, people didn’t want to hold elections,” said executive director Anton Grushetskyi.

“Why Fedorov didn’t understand this remains an open question.”

Appearing to announce the end of protests on Aug 19, chief organiser and veteran combat medic Dmytro Koziatynskyi said he “cannot imagine” how to hold polls with troops at the front.

It marked a stark reversal in fortune for Fedorov, who was credited with spearheading tough reforms and pursuing a innovation-driven approach to fighting Russia’s bigger army.

Vasyliaka and others said they had joined the protests because they wanted authorities to respond to public concerns over Fedorov’s sudden dismissal.

They had also rallied against unpopular military commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, accused by Fedorov of blocking his work.

Zelensky later replaced Syrskyi with a younger military reformer.

Fedorov then ratcheted up pressure on Zelensky by refusing any other role than his old posting, turning down the offer of deputy prime minister.

Yet, his call for elections, on the eve of Parliament’s confirmation of successor Yevhenii Khmara, appeared to be a clumsy misstep, one opposition lawmaker told Reuters.

“This demonstrates that (Fedorov) doesn’t have a presidential-level feel for the country,” said the lawmaker, who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive political issue.

Prokopenko described Fedorov’s move as a “false start” that could burn his political capital before elections can realistically be held.

Zelensky the survivor

The recent protests were the latest headache for Zelensky, whose wartime tenure has been marked by periodic scandals over alleged corruption or mismanagement.

The Aug 19 confirmation vote for Khmara, a former top special forces commander, followed hours after anti-graft police unveiled an operation against a deputy chief of staff whom Zelensky promptly fired. She denied wrongdoing.

Still, Zelensky’s approval rating has remained generally stable at around 60 per cent.

Public morale has also been buoyed by a recent successful Ukrainian campaign of strikes on Russian energy infrastructure and logistics.

“Mainly, people trust him because he’s a wartime leader, and they say, ‘We should rally around the flag to fight Russian aggression’,” said sociologist Grushetskyi.

He said Ukrainians would like to see fresh faces including soldiers and military leaders in power, something that would be virtually impossible if voting were held in wartime.

“Elections without good candidates would be less legitimate in the eyes of the public,” Grushetskyi said. REUTERS