Protesters who have taken to the streets this week in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, over a shake-up in military leadership have begun to focus their anger on one man in particular: Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the army’s top commander.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country in 2022, Ukrainian protesters had not denounced the military’s senior leadership. But on Friday, thousands of people in central Kyiv openly mocked General Syrskyi. Some held derogatory signs depicting slices of cheese, a play on the general’s name, which rhymes with the Ukrainian word for cheese. “Syrskyi, go away!” the crowd chanted.
On Saturday, a leader of the protests, Dmitry Kozyatinskyi, proposed a rally specifically to call for ousting General Syrskyi, who he said was “busy with politics instead of the front.”
This week’s wave of demonstrations began Thursday in support of Mykhailo Fedorov, the 35-year-old defense minister who was ousted by President Volodymyr Zelensky after Mr. Federov clashed with General Syrskyi. Mr. Fedorov, a champion of Ukraine’s successful drone warfare program, had accused the general of blocking the broader use of robots in the army, as well as other overhauls Mr. Federov had proposed.
The protesters in Kyiv have continued to show support for the military as a whole. But the sight of crowds personally deriding General Syrskyi, who commanded pivotal, successful battles earlier in the war, suggested that Ukraine could be in uncharted territory. Historically, street demonstrations have played an outsize role in the nation’s politics.
Mr. Kozyatinskyi, the protest leader, who is a former military medic with a large social media following, wrote on Facebook on Saturday that General Syrskyi “demoralizes the army, sabotages reforms, creates his own loyal troops, infringes on freedom of speech and represses soldiers.”
Supporters of the general say that frustration over the draft, high casualties in the army, Russian missiles that slip through air defenses and the other hardships of war are being unfairly taken out on the general leading the fight. They also dismiss Mr. Federov’s ideas about extensive robot warfare as a fantasy sold by technocrats.
Criticism of the army and its leadership is commonplace in Ukrainian media. And politics has been a factor in wartime military personnel decisions before, like the 2024 ouster of Valery Zaluzhny, who had been a top general and seen as a potential rival to Mr. Zelensky.
But before this week, street demonstrations had not directly addressed security policy, aside from toned-down protests calling for more support for prisoners of war and more efforts to find soldiers missing in action.
Ukrainian leaders disregard protests at their peril. Historians believe that toward the end of the Soviet Union, street demonstrations hastened independence for Ukraine. In 2004, protests led to a revote in a presidential election, and in 2014 they forced the ouster of a pro-Russian leader.
Mr. Zelensky has seemed to heed protesters’ demands before. In 2019, he changed course on diplomacy with Russia after relatively small demonstrations broke out, and last year he reversed his position on anti-corruption policies, apparently in response to protests.
In an apparent gesture to the protesters supporting Mr. Fedorov, Mr. Zelensky appointed one of the former defense minister’s advisers, Serhiy Beskrestnov, to a position in the presidential office on Friday. Mr. Beskrestnov, a widely read blogger on drones and missiles who goes by the nickname Flash, was named an adviser on military technology.
Ukraine’s drone bombardments of Russia, and of Ukrainian territory that it occupies, continued overnight. Drones hit two towns near Moscow, setting alight an oil depot and warehouse for an online retailer, according to Ukrainian statements and videos posted on Saturday. One person was killed and about 60 were wounded, nine critically, Moscow’s regional governor said.
The wave of protests that began on Thursday is the second since the war began, following the demonstrations over anti-corruption policies last summer. They remain small in proportion to Kyiv’s population of about three million.
On a balmy evening, streams of pedestrians flowed through leafy side streets on Friday into Franka Square in central Kyiv, where they waved homemade signs condemning General Syrskyi and praising Mr. Fedorov.
Parents pushed baby carriages or carried children on their shoulders. Darina Kucher, 31, a stylist, wore a Ukrainian flag and held aloft two cardboard signs critical of Mr. Zelensky for siding with the general over the minister.
She said she was in the square because she cared about Ukraine. Mr. Fedorov had brought “tangible changes” to the prosecution of the war, she said, while General Syrskyi symbolized older approaches to tactics and strategy.
“It’s been two days already and still nothing,” Ms. Kucher lamented of the protests’ effects so far. Around her, people chanted, “Syrskyi, go away!” They sang, banged on their signs and, addressing Mr. Zelensky, chanted, “You chose the wrong one!” and “Listen to the people!”
But protesters also showed deference to soldiers, chanting, “Glory to heroes!” The crowd knelt in a moment of silence for those killed in the war, becoming so quiet that only a few barking dogs could be heard. Then they rose and sang the national anthem.
“I’m not happy with constant changes — too many changes,” said one protester, Yurii Bauer, 40, as the crowd chanted, “Power to the people!” But he was optimistic: The protests last year against graft had forced Mr. Zelensky to reverse course, he said, and it might happen again.
Stanislav Kozliuk and Valerie Hopkins contributed reporting.
