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On July 15, 2026, Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed his defense minister. On paper, this move should come as no surprise: governments at war replace ministers; cabinet reshuffles are a natural part of executive power; and the Ukrainian Defense Ministry has undergone than one leadership shakeup since Valeriy Zaluzhnyi was replaced in February 2024. Yet this dismissal triggers something none of the previous ones had: people taking to the streets. Thousands of people in Kiev, for weeks on end, in a country under martial law where mass demonstrations are a rare and politically dangerous phenomenon.

The name around which that crowd is rallying is Mykhailo Fedorov.

A month later, on August 18, Fedorov himself posted a nine-minute  on YouTube in which he calls for wartime elections and denounces – without naming names – corruption and a “system that too often operates by its own rules, that protects itself, that fears change.” The next day, Parliament confirmed the successor that Zelenskyy had chosen, and – at the very same time – Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies announced an investigation into high-ranking officials in the Office of the President. In just over thirty days, a cabinet reshuffle has turned into something that closely resembles a low-intensity regime crisis.

This column does not intend to recount the details of the Zelensky–Fedorov clash, which has already been extensively documented. It aims to pose a uncomfortable question: Is this rift a trivial intra-governmental conflict over procurement and military command, or is it the first visible manifestation of a deeper struggle among competing political, economic, and institutional networks over the model of the postwar Ukrainian state and its integration into the European and transatlantic system? The hypothesis to be tested is that Fedorov has built up – through digital transformation, the technological defense ecosystem, relationships with Western governments and institutions, and European funding mechanisms – a power network that operates independently of the presidential office. I do not present this hypothesis as fact. I treat it as a proposition to be verified, rigorously distinguishing between what is documented and what is inference, conjecture, or mere accusation.

The rift

The sequence of events can be reconstructed with precision. Fedorov became Minister of Defense on January 14, 2026, coming from his role as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation. He remained in office for six months. On July 15, he was removed as part of the cabinet reshuffle that gave rise to the “Koretskyj government,” officially due to his inability to work with Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi. The official justification, however, does not hold up well in light of subsequent events: under pressure from protests, on July 21, Zelenskyy removed Syrskyi himself, replacing him with Mychajlo Drapatyi – yet he did not reinstate Fedorov. If the problem had been friction between the two men, removing one of them should have been enough. It was not enough.

On July 20, something even revealing happened. Syrskyi published a statement in Militarnyi apologizing to Fedorov and stating that he had been surprised to learn of the existence of an alleged conflict between them: “It came as a surprise to me to discover that the minister and I were in conflict.” It is a denial that, if taken seriously, undermines the official version of the dismissal. From that moment on, the dominant narrative in the Ukrainian press shifted: the real reason was said to be Fedorov’s interference in defense procurement contracts – that is, an attempt to reform the procurement system that would have affected entrenched interests. Fedorov himself, in the weeks that followed, pointed precisely to the overhaul of the procurement system – which involves billions of dollars – as one of the factors behind his dismissal.

We can thus note a first robust factual element: the official account does not explain the events. Syrskyi’s removal without Fedorov’s reinstatement, Fedorov’s public denial, and the shift in the narrative toward procurement indicate that what was at stake was not the personal chemistry between two officials. But “it wasn’t personal” does not yet mean “it was a struggle between transnational networks.” Between these two propositions lies the entire scope of the analysis.

But who is this Mr. Fedorov?

To understand the scope of the clash, one must assess the unusual nature of this figure. Fedorov was born in 1991. In 2019, at the age of twenty-eight, he became the youngest minister in Ukrainian history, responsible for digital transformation. He had been the architect of the digital campaign that brought Zelensky to the presidency in 2019, and remained, until 2026, the last surviving member of Zelensky’s first cabinet. Seven years at the heart of the government. No territorial base, no traditional party backing him, no career in the nomenklatura or the military apparatus. His political capital is of a different nature than that of the entire previous Ukrainian ruling class.

This is where the central hypothesis finds its first serious foothold. Elite theory has accustomed us to distinguishing power based on control of traditional resources – votes, clienteles, bureaucratic apparatuses, oligarchic wealth – from forms of power based on technical expertise, international networks, and functional legitimacy. Fedorov clearly belongs to the second category. His rise to power did not stem from deep roots in a particular territory but from the development of infrastructure: first that of the state’s digital services, then that of technological defense. In this model, power is neither inherited nor bought: it is designed and administered. And it is a form of power that, almost by definition, generates its own constituency – users, developers, entrepreneurs, investors, and officials – which does not coincide with the presidential electorate.

However, a methodological caveat must be noted right away. Fedorov “has never publicly expressed presidential ambitions,” notes Chatham House, while acknowledging that his political capital is growing. Polls place him behind Zelensky but ahead of many others: a survey by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology shows that confidence in Fedorov has risen from 38 to 50 percent in six months, compared with Zelensky, who remains stable at around 61–62 percent; another poll suggests that, in a hypothetical runoff, he could defeat his former boss. These figures reflect potential, not a fully established political machine. The difference is crucial, and I will keep it in mind until the end.

The bridge between Fedorov’s two careers – digital government and defense – is what makes him a fundamentally new figure. Diya, the app and portal launched in 2020, now serves approximately 21 million users and offers over 100 public services: digital identity, business registration, social benefits, and wartime services such as documenting property damage. Diya is not a gadget: it is an identity and data infrastructure that redefines the relationship between citizen and state, and which, in the language of technological governance, constitutes a platform upon which other state functions – including military ones – can be built.

For Fedorov, the transition from digital governance to military technology is not a career leap: it is the same logic applied to a different domain. The promise he brings to the Ministry of Defense is to apply a data-driven approach to the military – the same one he had applied to public services. And here he encounters resistance from the establishment: the military bureaucracy, traditional procurement, and the General Staff. The procurement reform that, in his view, cost him his job is the application – within the most opaque and wealthiest sector of the Ukrainian state – of a philosophy of transparency and digital disintermediation. Whoever controls the data and procurement flows holds real power in a war economy. It’s no surprise that the conflict flared up precisely there.

The New Ukrainian Defense Economy

The material heart of Fedorov’s network has a name: Brave1. Launched in April 2023 and personally championed by Fedorov, it is a state-run cluster that funds and accelerates defense startups by combining grants, testing, certification, and matchmaking with military procurement. It is not a company: it is a coordination platform between the Ministry of Digital Transformation, the armed forces, the General Staff, and the private sector. In its first two years, it awarded over 540 grants totaling than 2 billion hryvnias and brought together an ecosystem of over 1,500 innovative companies registered on the platform. The 2025 state budget allocated nearly 3 billion hryvnia to defense-tech grants.

The analytically decisive factor is not the public figure, but the hybrid structure of the funding. Ukrainian companies within Brave1 attract private capital and international venture funds through “invest demo days,” where matchmaking between companies and investors results in multimillion-dollar deals: Swarmer, which develops AI-powered drone swarm solutions, closed a $15 million Series A round led by U.S. investors. In March 2026, Brave1 took sixteen Ukrainian startups on a tour of six U.S. cities to pitch to venture capitalists, defense giants, and government officials; that same month, it launched a 10-million-euro call for proposals on anti-drone systems in collaboration with NATO, through the NCIA. Applying network theory to this architecture, what emerges is a bridge actor: Fedorov sits at the intersection of the Ukrainian state, Western private capital, the NATO defense industry, and the international investor community. It is precisely the kind of position that generates legitimacy and resources independent of the presidential palace.

We must honestly acknowledge what the sources do not say. There is no documentary evidence that Fedorov “controls” the Brave1 companies, nor that the cluster functions as his personal clientele in a financial sense. Brave1 is a state program with public grant procedures, and the startups are private entities with non-public valuations. What the evidence supports is a subtle and interesting thesis: a constituency of entrepreneurs, engineers, and investors has formed around Brave1, whose economic survival depends on the continuity of a model – that of disintermediated technological defense – which Fedorov embodies politically. It is not a machine for personal power. It is an organized interest group that finds its natural point of reference in Fedorov. The difference between the two is precisely what separates serious analysis from conspiracy theories.

Following the clues

Here, the argument enters delicate territory – where rigorous analysis and conspiracy theories bear a superficial resemblance and must be kept strictly separate. The question is not “Does Fedorov control EU-funded NGOs?” – a formulation that no available source supports. The correct question is structural: when external financial resources, in historically unprecedented quantities, begin to flow through certain institutions, programs, and networks within a recipient state, what happens to the internal balance of power?

The figures illustrate the scale of the phenomenon. The Ukraine Facility is an EU program totaling approximately 50 billion euros for the period 2024–2027; as of June 2026, Ukraine had already mobilized over 29.5 billion in budgetary support, equivalent to nearly 77% of the total funds available under the Plan. Of that 50 billion, approximately 38.5 billion is tied to the delivery of reforms under the “reforms in exchange for funds” principle: disbursements may be suspended if the Ukraine Facility is not implemented. On July 30, 2026, the Council amended the Facility to reflect an additional 8.3 billion for 2026, introducing new reform steps on the rule of law and anti-corruption.

The political point is that financial conditionality is becoming, as Ukrinform notes, “one of the tools for moving Ukraine toward EU membership.” In other words: those in Ukraine who are capable of implementing the reforms demanded by Brussels – digitalization, transparency in public procurement, anti-corruption measures, and e-government – become structurally valuable in the eyes of the funder. And here, Fedorov’s profile aligns with uncanny precision with the agenda of European conditionality. Diya is exactly the kind of infrastructure that the Commission praises as a model; the reform of defense procurement is exactly the kind of anti-corruption measure that the Ukraine Plan rewards. No conspiracy theory is needed to explain why European institutions might view a figure like him favorably: the logic of conditionality alone suffices.

But this is precisely where the most important caveat of this entire analysis must be made. Institutional favor is not a political alliance. Convergence between a reformist profile and a conditionality agenda is not dependence, much less manipulation. The available sources document a structural convergence of interests and agendas; they do not document a clientelistic relationship between Brussels and Fedorov. The temptation to read the latter into the former is precisely the mistake this column aims to avoid. What we can say is that European funds, entering Ukraine through the channel of reforms, objectively reward a certain type of technocratic and reformist elite. Fedorov is the purest example of this. This grants him a source of legitimacy – functional, not electoral – that the presidential office does not control.

The method I call “follow the money, follow the people, follow the institutions” requires, for each node, asking who is funding, who is receiving, through which entity and which program, and with what overlaps in personnel between the state, business, and civil society. Applied to the case of Fedorov, the method yields an honest but partial result: the institutional overlaps are evident and documented; the specific personnel overlaps, based on current public sources, are not as clear.

The institutional link is clear. Fedorov brought the same team and the same approach with him from the Ministry of Digital Transformation to the Ministry of Defense. Brave1 is a hybrid that brings public officials and private capital to the same table. The “revolving door” phenomenon – government officials moving to the private sector, private-sector executives returning to government, and an EU program funding a Ukrainian organization that then provides consultants to the government – is, within the Ukrainian defense-tech ecosystem, a structural possibility, not an accusation. But transforming this possibility into a named list of specific individuals requires documents – corporate records, board disclosures, verified biographies – that go beyond what the journalistic and institutional sources cited here provide. I point out the gap rather than filling it with conjecture: this is the difference between a network analysis and a pamphlet.

That said, one documented relationship deserves to be highlighted because it sheds light on the transnational nature of Fedorov’s political capital: his direct relationship with Elon Musk. It was Fedorov who secured the activation of Starlink in February 2022 through a public request; and it was again Fedorov, in February 2026, who convinced SpaceX to deny Russia access to the system – a move that a researcher at the Foreign Policy Research Institute described as “truly decisive” for its impact on Russian command and control. In the post in which he commented on his removal, Fedorov cited the blocking of Starlink as the first achievement of his tenure.

A minister capable of dealing directly with the man who controls the satellite infrastructure of the war is, by definition, an actor whose network of relationships extends beyond national borders. This is not a mere detail: it is proof that Fedorov’s relational capital has an international dimension that the presidential office neither mediates nor possesses.

The Zelensky Problem

Why would Zelensky perceive Fedorov as a political threat, assuming he does? Five competing explanations deserve to be tested, according to the logic of competing hypothesis analysis: not which is the most compelling, but which best withstands the available evidence.

The first hypothesis we can put forward is that of a bureaucratic conflict. The clash concerned procurement, military policy, command, and personality. This is the official version. Syrskyi’s denial and Fedorov’s failure to be reinstated after the commander-in-chief’s removal seriously undermine it: if that were all there was to it, the problem would have been resolved. It survives only as a partial component.

As a second possibility, an institutional conflict cannot be ruled out: Fedorov represented technological modernization against the entrenched military bureaucracy. This hypothesis is well-supported: the procurement reform, the friction with the General Staff, and the establishment’s resistance to the data-driven approach are all well-documented. It explains a great deal, but it does not explain why the rift escalated into a regime crisis.

But it could also be a matter of political succession, since Fedorov was building a profile capable of carrying weight in a post-war Ukraine. The polls and, above all, his call for elections on August 18 give this hypothesis a foundation it did not yet have in July. The August video retroactively reframes the July removal: what might have seemed like a managerial dispute appears, in light of his “entry into the political arena,” as the preemptive neutralization of a rival.

The involvement of competing international networks is equally plausible. Fedorov was increasingly embedded in European and Western institutional networks that provided him with legitimacy and resources independent of the presidency. The evidence here is structural and circumstantial: the alignment with the EU’s conditionality agenda, his central role in Brave1, and his relationship with Musk. But, as I have argued, favor and alignment do not equate to dependence or being commissioned. This hypothesis should be kept in mind as a factor, not elevated to a dominant explanation without further evidence.

Or it could be a combination of all four factors. The institutional conflict provided the trigger and the official cover; the succession issue raised the stakes; international networks gave Fedorov the confidence and resources to stand firm and reject any alternative appointment; and the bureaucratic establishment provided the public narrative. None of the four factors, on its own, explains why a cabinet reshuffle became a constitutional showdown. Their interaction does.

The military issue, Brussels, and the hypothetical postwar period

Syrskyi’s removal on July 21, 2026, and his replacement by Drapatyi should be viewed within this context. Syrskyi was the face of the old military guard, accused by critics of heavy losses on the front lines. His clash with Fedorov was, in essence, a conflict between two visions of war: that of the traditional military establishment, based on mass mobilization and hierarchical command, and the technological approach, based on drones, autonomous systems, electronic warfare, and data. The fact that Zelensky had to sacrifice Syrskyi in the face of protests, yet still chose Yevhen Khmara – an SBU veteran who led the long-range drone strike campaign – as the new defense minister speaks volumes.

Zelensky did not reject Fedorov’s technological agenda: he claimed leadership of it, emphasizing that Khmara has gained “unprecedented” experience in technological strike operations and that Ukraine’s defense must focus on long-range capabilities – precisely the area Fedorov had championed. It’s a revealing move: the president absorbed the program and removed the architect. He kept the technology and discarded the man who had turned it into a platform for autonomous power. This, than any poll, is the strongest circumstantial evidence that what was at stake was not defense policy itself, but control over who embodies it politically.

The useful analytical category here is that of outsourced state-building. When two-thirds of a warring state’s financial needs are covered by an external financier who ties disbursements to a reform package, the financier does not necessarily “interfere” in domestic politics – but objectively reshapes its incentives. According to the Commission, total European and member state resources for Ukraine have exceeded 193 billion euros; the 2026–2027 package alone covers two-thirds of the IMF’s estimated biennial needs, again subject to strict conditions regarding the rule of law and anti-corruption measures.

The structural effects of this funding flow must be assessed objectively, without equating funding with interference. European funds strengthen the Ukrainian state as a whole, but not all of its components to the same extent. It strengthens ministries capable of producing measurable reforms; it strengthens the technocracies that speak the language of Brussels; it strengthens civil society organizations and anti-corruption programs required by the conditionality; and, indirectly, it strengthens defense-tech companies and entrepreneurs who secure European guarantees, investments, and cooperation. In essence, it creates centers of legitimacy alternative to the electoral and presidential ones: legitimacy that derives from recognition by the external funder rather than from the vote. It is in this space that a figure like Fedorov thrives. Not because someone in Brussels chose him, but because the very structure of the funding favors the type of actor he represents.

Hence the question that gives meaning to everything else: which Ukrainian elite is best positioned to dominate the state during reconstruction? Ukraine’s postwar period will be a high-stakes decision-making machine – elections, constitutional legitimacy, reconstruction contracts estimated at hundreds of billions, EU accession, defense industrial policy, privatizations, foreign investment, anti-corruption reforms, and decentralization. Whoever controls the institutions that will manage those flows will control real power in Ukraine in 2030.

There are at least five contenders. Zelensky’s presidential network, which currently controls the executive branch but whose capital – the war leader’s legitimacy – is eroding as peace approaches: a May 2026 poll indicated that 67% of Ukrainians expect him to be replaced once the war ends. The military leadership, with Zaluzhnyi – now ambassador to London and consistently at the top of the trust ratings – as the most formidable rival. Fedorov’s tech network, built on digitalization, innovative defense, European funding, and transnational networks. Civil society and reform networks, fueled by donors. And industrial and regional interests, both old and new. Viewed in this light, the July–August 2026 clash is a vanguard skirmish in a war of position over the postwar architecture that has yet to truly begin.

The call for elections on August 18 is the move that makes explicit what was previously implicit. “We must not let Putin decide when Ukrainians can choose their own government,” Fedorov said, linking the call for a vote to the issue of accountability: “If you’ve been given authority, you’re accountable for the result. If you’ve been given a budget, show what has been accomplished.” An analyst in Kiev summed it up this way: Fedorov has “crossed the Rubicon” in his relationship with his former boss. Calling for elections under martial law – while Moscow disputes Zelensky’s very legitimacy (his term expired in 2024) – is a double-edged move: it opens up a domestic front that objectively weakens the president, and it does so at the very moment when anti-corruption agencies are targeting his office. The timing does not prove coordination, but it clearly delineates the battlefield.

A bit of Pop Psychology

A thesis that does not attempt to refute itself is not analysis but advocacy. At least six alternative interpretations deserve to be taken seriously, each with an indication of what evidence would confirm or falsify it.

First: Fedorov’s networks are the normal consequence of international cooperation, not a political machine. This would be falsified by the discovery of operational coordination between his organization and external funders; it would be confirmed by the persistent absence of any formal political organization around him. To date, the latter is widely supported than the former.

Second: EU funds are transparent and institutionally monitored, and do not create clientelism. This is confirmed by the Facility’s audit mechanisms; it would be undermined by evidence that specific programs are funding personal networks. The available evidence points toward formal transparency.

Third: The clash with Zelensky is essentially personal and psychological – a rift between a patron and his longest-serving protégé. This is plausible on a human level, but insufficient to explain the mass protests and the call for elections.

Fourth: The military dispute explains almost everything, and the rest is interpretive superstructure. This holds up until July 21, then begins to crack with the failure to reinstate him.

Fifth: Fedorov has no real independent political base, only volatile media popularity and the support of a tech-oriented constituency lacking electoral clout. This is the strongest counter-hypothesis and must be given the utmost consideration: a startup constituency is not a political party, and trust in polls does not translate into votes.

Sixth: European institutions, if they were ever to choose, would prefer institutional continuity to a single individual, and the perceived “network” is actually an artifact of overlapping professional circles – people who meet at the same conferences and sit on the same boards because they operate within the same small world, not because they are carrying out a plan. This is, in my view, the methodologically most serious counter-hypothesis of all, and the reason why the entire analysis must be treated as hypothetical.

Amid all this, what is really happening?

When we piece together what the evidence suggests, a picture emerges that is neither innocent nor conspiratorial. It is well documented that the official rationale for the removal does not hold up; that the real battleground was procurement reform and the conflict with the military establishment; that Fedorov embodies a model of technocratic, digital, and transnational model of power that is structurally different from that of the previous Ukrainian ruling class; that a real constituency of businesses and investors has formed around Brave1; that the architecture of European funding objectively rewards the type of elite he represents; and that, with the call for elections in August, Fedorov has gone from being a dismissed minister to an explicit political challenger.

It is a strong inference – though not an established fact – that the July dismissal was a preemptive move to neutralize a potential rival in the succession race. It is a plausible – though unproven – conjecture that European and transnational networks have granted Fedorov the autonomy necessary to stand his ground. And any claim that Fedorov “controls” NGOs, European funds, or programs – or that Brussels has chosen him as its own man – is mere speculation, given the current state of public sources. The distinction between these three levels – strong inference, plausible conjecture, and speculation – is the only thing separating this column from a conspiracy-theory book, and I defend it to the very end.

What remains?

Is Fedorov just another Ukrainian minister who has clashed with Zelensky, or is he the visible representative of a new Ukrainian political-economic configuration – built on digital government, defense technology, European funding, transnational networks, and postwar reconstruction – capable one day of challenging the presidential model of power?

The honest answer is that we don’t know if Fedorov will succeed, and that it would be irresponsible to claim he is destined to replace Zelensky. His constituency is not yet a party; his popularity is not yet a political machine; his international networks are a source of functional legitimacy, not a proven operational alliance. But the right question is not whether Fedorov will win. It is whether the structural conditions exist for an actor like him – him or a political formation built on the same model – to become a major force in postwar Ukraine. And the evidence answers this question in the affirmative.

All the conditions are in place: a presidential administration whose wartime legitimacy is fading with the arrival of peace; a military apparatus discredited in the eyes of part of the public; an external financier that structurally rewards reformist and technocratic elites; a reconstruction economy worth hundreds of billions seeking credible managers in the West; and a figure who sits at the intersection of all these forces. The Fedorov case does not tell us who will govern Ukraine in 2030. It tells us what kind of power is on the rise: no longer that of the charismatic leader or the general, but that of whoever controls the data, platforms, and channels through which foreign money becomes the state.

The clash with Zelensky is the first visible skirmish in this transition. It won’t be the last.