Fedorov confirmed he is stepping down in a Facebook post.
“I will continue to work for the mission with which I came to the ministry of defense earlier — to defeat the enemy through asymmetry, speed of innovation, and organizational strength,” Fedorov said.
Fedorov, 35, had only been in the post for half a year and was seen as a reformer who brought private-sector speed and decisiveness to Ukraine’s military. But his efforts to slash corruption, revamp the tendering process and boost Ukraine’s drone technology clashed with the approach of the commander in chief, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi.
“Zelenskyy said he cannot choose between Fedorov and Syrskyi, and said Fedorov was the one who failed mobilization reform,” Yaroslav Zhelezhyak, an MP with the opposition Holos party, said in a post on Facebook Wednesday, describing the decision as “stupid and unfair.”
In the six months he was in office Fedorov persuaded Elon Musk’s SpaceX to switch off Starlink terminals being used by the Russian military, creating chaos for the Kremlin’s forces. He also helped push the mid-range strike campaign that uses drones to hit targets up to 100 kilometers behind the front lines, disrupting Russian logistics and slowing the Kremlin’s territorial gains.
Fedorov, who previously served as the digital transformation minister, used his tech background to introduce an after-action review after Russian attacks, something that helped the Ukrainian air force improve its drone interception rate.