Ukraine: Could ex-defense minister challenge Zelenskyy?

This week, Ukraine was rocked by a series of political scandals. A month after stepping down as defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov addressed the Ukrainian people in a nine-minute speech posted on his YouTube channel.

In his video message, he declares that Ukraine "cannot remain without a fully appointed minister of defense." But, he continues, "the main problem goes much deeper than one position or one ministry."

He says Ukraine's greatest challenge is a "systemic crisis of governance," of which corruption is only a symptom. Fedorov also criticized the fact that no national elections have been held in Ukraine since 2019.

A few hours earlier, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy , had proposed Yevhenii Khmara to parliament as the new defense minister. Khmara had been made acting minister of defense on July 20, and parliament confirmed him in the position on August 19.

When Fedorov spoke of corruption in government authorities, he may not have known about the scandal that would break the very day after he published his speech. On August 19, Ukrainian anti-corruption investigators searched the premises of several high-ranking officials, including a presidential deputy chief of staff, Iryna Mudra, and a member of parliament, Vadym Stolar.

Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) stated that it was "conducting a special operation to expose a criminal organization" in conjunction with the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office.

According to the investigating authorities, this organization was led by a current and a former Ukrainian lawmaker, and involved senior officials from the president's office. Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed Mudra from her post as presidential deputy chief of staff the same day.

In his video, Mykhailo Fedorov warns that "it is especially dangerous when society feels that the main criterion for appointing a person is not their professionalism, results, or ability […] but their personal loyalty to the system." He says that a "legal, safe, and realistic mechanism" needs to be found to make it possible to hold elections, even if Russia's war against Ukraine continues for a long time.