Ukraine’s ousted Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov called for wartime elections in a bombshell address on Tuesday, arguing the nation faced a crisis of governance, in the biggest internal challenge to President Volodymyr Zelensky since Russia’s invasion.
Fedorov’s call, delivered in a video address posted on YouTube, is the first such demand by a major Ukrainian political figure since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. Ukrainian law prohibits holding elections during wartime.
“Democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia,” Fedorov said. “We must find a legal, safe and realistic mechanism that will allow Ukraine to renew its full democratic process even in the conditions of a long war.”
The 35-year-old Fedorov was a longtime ally of Zelensky until his unexpected firing from the Defense Ministry in July, just six months after he had been appointed, vowing sweeping reforms.
How do you get all the Ukrainians that fled during the war to vote without interference?
Also, how do you make sure none of the candidates are secretly collaborating with Russia?
Democracy is Russian propaganda
Let’s all just pretend hybrid warfare isn’t a thing suddenly, sure. Great point
Let’s pretend everyone disagreeing with Zelensky is a Russian shill great point
I’m trying to give Russia some credit here, they’ve always been better at spygames than westerners. Seems like the only reason not to give them their flowers on that is to downplay the risk that they’ll succeed. I’m all for elections and letting Zelensky go, but it has to be done perfectly or a lot of people’s lives get completely ruined.
And Zelensky isn’t ruining a lot of people’s lives by throwing them into the meatgrinder?
Interesting point about the only side that is emphasizing unmanned weapons and avoiding unnecessary casualties. Are you noticing how biased you sound right now?
Why was this guy fired? I’m missing something.
He got replaced as a part of a government reshuffle caused by the dismissal of the old prime minister, most likely because he didn’t exactly agree with the military leadership and firing the commander-in-chief of the armed forces instead wasn’t exactly an option for Zelenskyy.
What’s this guys connection to the piece of shit Elon?
Fedorov was the guy in the Ministry of Digital Transformation who back in February 2022 tweeted at Elon asking for Starlink which got them that shortly afterwards back in the time when it was very good publicity to back Ukraine. In more recent times he was in charge of trying to convince Elon to restrict Russia’s use of Starlink and to allow Ukraine to use Starlink in Russia. So they’ve been having a lot of texting and video calls to that end which evidently worked.
With Fedorov having gotten what he wanted out of those talks, being an acquaintance of him and knowing that Elon sometimes supports foreign politicians, I guess he figures it doesn’t hurt to puff Elon up with this sort of message made a day or two back in case Elon helps support his bid for the leadership:
Elon Musk is prorably the most important tech person and entrepreneur in the world for our country. By shutting down Russia’s illegal use of Starlink on Ukrainian territory, @elonmusk and @SpaceX protected our air defense, saved our air force, and spared thousands of civilian
For background Fedorov has become very popular in Ukraine for his modernization efforts to crack down on corruption in military procurement and focus on drone warfare. Zelensky recently fired Fedorov from his new position of Defense Minister which was a very controversial move that no doubt worsened their relations with each other.
Restricting Russian starlink wasnt ever really a thing that SpaceX needed convincing of, it was Ukraine that needed to decide it wanted it, as it required a whitelist.
They hadn’t been getting buy in from their soldiers because a lot of dishes were donated and the soldiers were worried they’d lose their dish if they registered it.
Once Russia started putting them on drones that were harder to destroy because of it, push came to shove and a whitelist was authorized and SpaceX actioned it right away.
At the moment, there is no realistic way to do it.
Large gatherings of people may become a target.
Zelensky is corrupt asf
The Ukrainian people are stuck between the fucking criminal Russian regime and their own criminal puppet Ukrainian regime. The situation is fucked and there’s no resolution that benefits the average citizen, whatever the ethnicity.
