# Mykhailo Fedorov **Mykhailo Fedorov** is the Ukrainian technologist-politician who digitized the Ukrainian state, then its drone war, and was briefly Defence Minister in 2026. His firing that July set off Ukraine's largest wartime street protests and brought down the commander-in-chief who had opposed him. He is the vault's clearest case of the tech-forward pole in the [[Ukrainian Military Doctrine Split]]. ## Career | Dates | Role | |---|---| | 2019 – Jan 13, 2026 | Minister of Digital Transformation. Built the Diia e-government app, organized the volunteer "IT Army," and ran wartime drone procurement. | | July 17, 2025 – Jan 2026 | First Deputy Prime Minister | | Jan 14 – July 2026 | **Minister of Defence** | **Getting the job.** The first Rada vote, on January 13, 2026, failed with 206 votes (226 needed). He passed the next day with 277, replacing Denys Shmyhal, who moved to energy. ## The firing and the protests Fedorov's push for shorter kill chains, decentralized command and software-first procurement put him in open conflict with Commander-in-Chief [[Oleksandr Syrsky]]. In mid-July 2026 Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko stepped down and the cabinet resigned. On **July 15** [[Volodymyr Zelensky]] announced that Fedorov was out, saying of the two men: "The sides did not find it [unity]." NPR reports the removal took effect on July 16. Serhii Koretskyi, the former head of Naftogaz, became Prime Minister. **The protests.** They began on July 15–16 in Kyiv and spread to more than 20 cities. They ran almost daily for a month, peaking at 2,000–3,000 people in Kyiv's Ivan Franko Square on July 24. Protesters demanded Fedorov's reinstatement and Syrsky's removal, and an air-force deputy commander resigned in sympathy. They got half of it: Zelensky dismissed Syrsky on July 21. Fedorov was not brought back. The movement wound down around August 19, after he called for wartime elections and its organizers refused to follow him there. **His successor.** Major General Yevhenii Khmara, the former acting head of the SBU, served as acting minister from July 20 and was confirmed on **August 19, 2026**, with 312 votes. ## Since leaving office - **August 28, 2026:** became an unpaid adviser to Italy's Defence Minister, Guido Crosetto, while staying in Kyiv. - **September 26, 2026:** launched an "Army of Robots" defense-tech initiative. The Kyiv Independent reports he has also started a defense-tech company backed by Palantir's [[Alex Karp]] (one source). See [[Alex Karp News Log]]. ## Why he matters for the KB Fedorov is the meeting point between Ukraine's war and the Western defense-tech industry: [[Palantir]], [[Anduril]] and the drone start-ups. The doctrine they sell is software-defined, cheap and attritable, and Ukraine is its proving ground. His exit from government and his move into the private side of that same industry are worth watching. ## See Also - [[Ukrainian Military Doctrine Split]] · [[Ukrainian Armed Forces Command Structure]] · [[Ukraine War Timeline]] - [[Oleksandr Syrsky]] · [[Mykhailo Drapatyi]] · [[Volodymyr Zelensky]] - [[Alex Karp]] · [[Palantir]] · [[Russo-Ukrainian War]]