For President Volodymyr Zelensky, a long string of political and battlefield setbacks had by this summer seemed to fade into the rearview mirror. Ukraine, through the grit of its soldiers and the innovation of its engineers, entered a winning streak.
What snapped it was not a fearsome Russian offensive or another unraveling of relations with President Trump. Instead, it was an outbreak of political infighting, which culminated with Mr. Zelensky’s dismissal on Wednesday of a popular, youthful defense minister who championed the innovations of drone warfare.
The minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, responded Thursday by hosting reporters and opposition politicians in an underground parking garage, for security against Russian missiles. There, he aired the most dramatic, public critique of Ukraine’s war strategy, its corruption in defense contracting and the shortcomings in its military command to emerge during the full-scale war with Russia.
After more than four years in which virtually all Ukrainian officials lionized the military leadership, Mr. Fedorov lit into it. An open clash between the minister of defense and the commanding general had cracked an all-important sense of unity in fighting the larger Russian Army, as well as the narrative of a Ukraine riding high in the war.
For weeks, Ukrainians had talked of a turning point in the conflict, with Ukraine having battlefield and diplomatic success, after a cold, dark winter of heavy Russian bombardments.
The front line, while still a swirl of lethal violence, has mostly stabilized with drone-fighting tactics. Ukraine has regularly attacked Moscow with exploding drones, and just in the past week and a half, it reported hitting 116 ships in the Black and Azov Seas. Ukraine is receiving installments of a 90 billion euro loan from the European Union. And at a meeting in Ankara, Turkey, last week, Mr. Trump praised Mr. Zelensky’s prosecution of the war and offered a pathway to more of the lifesaving interceptor missiles that Ukraine desperately needs.
Now, suddenly, the country is mired in a political crisis that is the most significant leadership breach since Mr. Zelensky in 2024 fired a previous commanding general, Valeriy Zaluzhny, who had clashed with the president over mobilization policies.
This time, the leadership rift pits one generation against another and raises questions about how fully Ukraine, with its vaunted reputation for military innovation, is embracing the high-tech solutions that Mr. Fedorov has embodied.
In the Ukrainian military, he said in his remarks, “if you succeed you become a star, and then you hit a dead end” as hidebound generals jealously thwart the rise of a new cohort of battle-tested commanders and digital-minded strategists. He openly called for the resignation of the commander in chief, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi.
At a nearby park, a crowd of protesters — only the second large street demonstration of the war — stomped their feet in support of Mr. Fedorov, clapped their hands and chanted, “One Ukraine, united and free!”
Mr. Zelensky cited the clash between General Syrskyi and Mr. Fedorov as the reason for the defense minister’s dismissal. But he did not directly address why he had fired Mr. Fedorov, the leading proponent of Ukraine’s drone-centric strategies, rather than General Syrskyi, who achieved success early in the war with infantry and armored vehicle maneuvers that have since been largely abandoned, because of their vulnerability to drones.
In a statement posted on Telegram, Mr. Zelensky said that he “would very much like to see unity” between the defense minister and the general.
“But the situation is what it is,” he added. “In such circumstances, I have to choose one side or the other, because without me they do not sit down at the negotiating table.”
The breach extended into the ranks of the armed forces, where public debate by officers, including on political matters, is more tolerated than in many other militaries.
Col. Pavlo Yelizarov, a deputy commander of the air force, submitted his resignation in protest of Mr. Fedorov’s dismissal. “I believe the removal of Fedorov is a great blow to the country’s defense,” he wrote in a social media post.
Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi, the commander of joint forces, a position responsible for coordinating among branches of the military and other security services, issued a statement supporting Mr. Fedorov. “Silence does not protect the army, it only allows mistakes to accumulate,” he wrote.
Parliament, which must confirm any new defense minister, delayed a vote on the position on Thursday. Late in the day, Mr. Zelensky said he had offered the job to Gen. Yevhen Khmara, the director of the internal intelligence agency.
In the underground parking garage, Mr. Fedorov made his case for an overhaul of the military command by running through what he called its shortcomings, despite Ukraine’s recent success.
The site had been set up for a presentation on drone technology unrelated to Mr. Fedorov’s gathering. As he spoke, gigantic television screens played eerie, night-vision videos in black and white of drones crashing into ships, radar antennas and other targets.
Mr. Fedorov accused General Syrskyi, a flint-hard, old-school general who gained the nickname “the Butcher” for high losses among infantry soldiers, of strategic shortsightedness. The general, Mr. Fedorov said, thwarted the careers of promising junior commanders and resisted the drone and robot combat transforming the ground, air and sea war.
“Decisions about who should be supported and who should not, who should be reinforced and who should not, are not based on data,” he said. “They are based on loyalty” to the senior commanders.
Behind the scenes, Ukraine’s army had for years been split between more technologically minded brigades and traditional infantry and mechanized units. Mr. Fedorov said he was bringing the divide into the light to speak to Ukrainians as “adults” about problems in the army.
He also said that he had sought to tamp down what he described as rampant corruption in defense procurement, and acknowledged he had made enemies doing so. Mr. Zelensky, Mr. Fedorov said, had faced complaints from defense contractors. “There is a lot of corruption,” he said.
Responding to Mr. Fedorov’s news conference and the demonstrations in support of him, General Syrskyi wrote on Telegram that he was grateful protests could be held in Kyiv because of the city’s successful defense, which he commanded early in Russia’s invasion.
Volodymyr Yermolenko, the editor in chief of Ukraine World, a magazine of culture and politics, said the rift over how to wage the war had come into the open now “precisely because there are successes” on the battlefield.
“The people who always said our solution was technical were becoming more vocal” and felt vindicated, he said. Now, those favoring a more traditional approach are pushing back.
The clash carries risks. “Ukrainian history shows that if we are united, it’s very difficult to win against Ukraine,” Mr. Yermolenko said. But in a pluralistic democracy, it is not so easy.
“The biggest enemy is internal division,” he said. “Our history taught us this can be deadly.”
Nataliia Novosolova and Stanislav Kozliuk contributed reporting.
