Kyiv brawl: Ukraine’s top general fired
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Economist.
Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. I'm Rosie Bloor. Today on the show, why police killings are rising in America, though murders are falling, and our correspondent visits a Japanese haunted house. First up though,
In recent weeks, Ukraine and Russia have been pounding each other with vengeance. On Sunday, Kyiv suffered one of the biggest ballistic attacks of the war with a five-hour assault. Ukraine has responded with strikes in Crimea and used drones to hit giant warehouses in Russian cities. But this week, the conflict came home to Ukraine in a different way, with a cabinet reshuffle that's provoked outrage among ordinary Ukrainians. It's the sign of a deep domestic political battle. The question is whether it could trigger an even more significant one.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has just fired his top military general, Oleksandr Sersky, this very controversial figure in the army.
Shashank Joshi is our outgoing defense editor.
This came after days of public protests calling for Sersky's sacking, but also calling for the return of the Ukrainian defense minister, Mikhail Fedorov, who was dismissed last week in a cabinet reshuffle.
Why did Zelensky sack defence minister Fedorov and how did protests follow?
And I think what's at stake here is the very ethos of the Ukrainian military and the nature of its war effort.
Shashank, this seems like a really weird situation. You've got a country at war and massive changes at the top of its military and defence structure. You've also got a cabinet reshuffle bringing people onto the streets. Let's start at the beginning. What's going on and why did Fedorov leave?
So Fedorov, to take a step back, was appointed as defense minister at the very beginning of this year. And he was previously minister of digital transformation. He was a young, very well-regarded minister among Ukraine's allies. You know, I met him a few years ago. His office was covered in drones. He had done a huge amount to scale up Ukraine's use of drone technology, but also reform the way in which these things were procured. For example, creating incentives for different brigades to hit more Russian targets that would get them more drones and more ammunition. So he was pretty well regarded in that respect. But he had clashed repeatedly with the army, and particularly with Sersky, the command room chief, who was viewed as a kind of very Soviet-style, rigid, disciplinarian general who
who had very crude tactics, a very divisive figure within the army. And these clashes got worse and worse. So, for example, Fedorov as defense minister would say, you have to consolidate your best brigades and make sure that they're located along the same points on the front. Sersky split them up and put them at different points on the front. Fedorov tried to channel resources towards those units and brigades that were doing the most interesting things with technology. And he would find that Sersky had basically taken some of those units and put them into assault regiments, which had the highest casualties. So again and again, there was an enormous personality clash, but I think much more importantly, a culture clash between this young reformist minister and an army that he saw as blocking him and obstructing him at every turn.
Okay, so Zelensky fired Fedorov. Now he's fired Sirsky, who he was fighting with. Will that resolve the problem?
No, I don't think it does. First of all, Fedorov is still sacked. He doesn't have his old job back. Zelensky's been considering other candidates for that job, including the interior minister. He seems to have offered Fedorov other roles, you know, some sort of roles overseeing procurement or technology. And Fedorov realises, I think, that he has leverage here. There's protests on the streets. in favor of him. He secured the sacking of the army chief here, who was his sort of nemesis. And so there's an opportunity here for him to perhaps rest his job back. But that's part one. The other question is Sersky's successor, who is Mihailo Drapati. And he has been responsible for Ukrainian defenses in the northeast of the country.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:03–1:57
2
Why did Zelensky sack defence minister Fedorov and how did protests follow?
1:57–7:37
3
Who is Oleksandr Sersky and what were the criticisms of his military leadership?
7:37–14:00
4
How did the Fedorov–Sersky clash reflect a culture war inside Ukraine’s armed forces?
14:00–21:18