President Volodymyr Zelenskiy endorsed the head of the state energy company as Ukraine's new prime minister on Wednesday, while lawmakers said he planned to replace his defence minister at a pivotal juncture in the war with Russia. The reshuffle landed just after Zelenskiy pushed out Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko this week after just a year on the job. Parliament accepted her resignation on Tuesday and is expected to vote on her successor on Thursday. The machinery of government keeps moving, but only in the narrow lane set by the presidency and a parliamentary majority that is likely to do what it's told.
Winter First, Democracy Later
Speaking to reporters in Kyiv, Zelenskiy said the CEO of the state-owned energy company Naftogaz, Sergii Koretskyi, was the best candidate for prime minister because Ukraine's priority was preparing for the upcoming winter. "The priorities are clear – preparing for winter," Zelenskiy said. "Therefore, following all the consultations, Sergii Koretskyi is surely the most prepared candidate for the post of prime minister of Ukraine." The line is neat enough for a briefing room. On the ground, it means another winter of power-grid strain, missile alarms and a state that treats survival as an administrative exercise.
Outgoing Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko's removal, after just a year in office, triggered the resignation of the whole government. Parliament names the prime minister and is likely to accept Zelenskiy's preferred candidate as prime minister as his Servant of the People party controls a majority. That majority matters more than the ritual of consultation. The vote is coming, the outcome looks pre-written, and the public gets the familiar theatre of parliamentary procedure while the real decisions are made elsewhere.
Much of the focus on the government line-up was fixed on whether Zelenskiy would keep Fedorov, a 35-year-old tech expert, as defence minister nearly 4-1/2 years into the war with Russia. Members of parliament, posting on social media after a meeting with the president, said he would appoint Ihor Klymenko, interior minister since 2023, to take on the defence portfolio. Olha Vasylevska-Smahliuk, from Zelenskiy's ruling Servant of the People party, said that Klymenko would be put forward. The state keeps swapping managers while the war grinds on. Different faces. Same command structure.
The War Machine Keeps Its Staff
It was not immediately clear whether another government job would be offered to Fedorov, who during his six-month tenure as defence minister has led an ambitious campaign to transform Ukraine's outmanned army into a more efficient fighting force. Some lawmakers said Zelenskiy's decision to replace Fedorov as defence minister would not help Ukraine's war effort. Oleksandr Merezhko, the chair of parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee and member of Zelenskiy’s party, said he was disappointed. "Fedorov… is highly respected amongst our international partners," he said on social media. "His name was associated with hopes for genuine reforms within the Ministry of Defence."
Maria Berlinska, a prominent volunteer and drone warfare advocate, said Fedorov's replacement was "one of President Zelenskiy's biggest mistakes." "This decision by the president will not only cost us, it will cost us hugely. The price will be the lives and health of hundreds of thousands of people ... if not more." That is the language of war stripped of ceremony. Lives and health, counted in the thousands and then the hundreds of thousands, while ministers are rotated like parts in a machine that never stops.
Fedorov, writing on Telegram, said it had been a "great honour" to serve Ukraine and compiled two sets of objectives - those already achieved, including investments in drones and a revamp of procurements. Others to be completed included "organising the transformation of the Defence Ministry to the standards of NATO and common sense". NATO appears here not as a distant alliance but as a standard to be imposed on a ministry already built for war. Common sense, in this vocabulary, means making the war apparatus run more efficiently.
The episode threatens to further dent public and parliamentary trust in Zelenskiy's wartime leadership, just when Ukraine's fortunes appear to be reversing. Ukraine also still faces critical challenges like a shortage of air defences and manpower. Russia says it is on course to achieve its goals in the war, now in its fifth year. The calendar keeps turning. The casualties keep coming. The institutions keep speaking in the language of priorities, reforms and consultations.
Fortress Belt, Winter Grid
Fedorov's attempts to clean up defence procurement have angered parts of the establishment, his supporters say. He has also been criticized by some lawmakers for failing to deliver quickly enough on his pledge to reform recruitment. Previously, as Ukraine's first minister for digital transformation, Fedorov streamlined key state services into a now-ubiquitous app. As defence minister, he has been credited with boosting drone procurement and pursuing a data-driven strategy of exhausting Russian forces. The state loves efficiency when it serves the war effort. It loves apps, procurement and data when they help manage people and weapons more tightly.
Despite its success, Ukraine lacks U.S.-designed interceptors to shoot down the ballistic missiles that have rained down on major cities like Kyiv in greater numbers. Officials are bracing for another winter of Russian strikes on the power grid. Fedorov's reforms to alleviate the army's manpower shortage remain in progress, while abuse and mismanagement still plague the draft and some military units. The draft, the grid, the air defences, the manpower shortage: this is what the state calls governance under fire.
On the battlefield, Russia is grinding toward Ukraine's "fortress belt" of cities in the eastern Donetsk region that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to occupy fully. The phrase fits the moment too well. Fortress belt, fortress state, fortress logic. Different flags, same architecture of coercion, with ordinary people trapped between armies, ministries and the cold arithmetic of power.