Ukraine and its defence forces have had a new defence minister for almost a month: 35-year-old Mykhailo Fedorov.
He is the fourth head of the Ministry of Defence since Russia launched its full-scale war against Ukraine and the first to arrive with a serious reputation for delivery. After his high-profile successes at the Ministry of Digital Transformation, expectations are running high among the military and civilians alike, not least from the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Those expectations may be uncomfortably high.
For this article we interviewed Ukrainian military personnel at different levels, from drone operators in frontline brigades to senior officers. Many of those spoken to, battle-hardened sceptics after years of war, expressed strikingly high confidence in Fedorov.
“If Magyar [Robert Brovdi, alias Magyar, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces] was the hope of 2025, then Misha [Fedorov] is the hope of 2026," an officer who until recently worked with the commander-in-chief told Ukrainska Pravda. "He’s a phenomenal guy. I hope he pulls it off and big changes are coming.”
Ukrainska Pravda sets out we know about Fedorov after his first month in post, why his reliance on Serhii Sternenko (a popular lawyer, activist and YouTuber) and Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov (a specialist in military radio technology) makes sense at least for now, and what changes he wants to make to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Time for the Ministry of Defence to step up
For most people spoken to in military and political circles, the defence minister reshuffle at the start of 2026 came out of the blue.
Denys Shmyhal (prime minister 2020-2025; defence minister July 2025 - January 2026) had only just got up to speed in his new role and, in theory, should have been well able to manage this new government post. Fedorov, for his part, had spent the past few years focused largely on delivering frontline technologies, and was not widely seen as someone angling for the defence minister’s post.
“Everything we have on the front right now shows we’re losing… The president probably wants to turn it around," says a senior officer from one of the corps commands told Ukrainska Pravda cautiously. "And he believes in Fedorov. I also really hope for change."
“Misha is our only hope. Our last hope," another officer said. He works in short-range air defence and it was hard to tell whether he was joking.
That raises an obvious question: if Fedorov is the answer, why has Zelenskyy not replaced the commander-in-chief instead?
Some of those interviewed believe Fedorov’s push for measurable results, explored later in this piece, will reach Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi within two to three months. In their view, a decision on Syrskyi’s future would follow some kind of performance audit. .
Others insist the president remains content with Syrskyi and has brought in Fedorov to reinforce him, not sideline him. They argue that, exhaustion aside, Syrskyi understands the battlefield better than anyone and there is still no credible alternative willing to take on the job.
How has the military leadership reacted to Fedorov’s appointment?
“You can roughly divide the military into two camps: progressive and conservative," an officer who worked with the commander-in-chief told Ukrainska Pravda. “Most of the younger, more progressive ones are backing Misha. The conservative, well-known officers say: ‘No way, it’s bullshit.’ The CGS [Chief of the General Staff, Andrii Hnatov] seems to accept him, but Syrskyi, as far as I know, is sceptical.”
Almost a month ago, on 14 January, Fedorov did not simply arrive at the Ministry of Defence, he stormed into its universe, signalling that he intends to rewrite the rules of how the ministry works and, more pointedly, how it interacts with the General Staff, the commander-in-chief and the wider armed forces.
Fedorov is plainly not interested in being a defence minister in name only, limited to overseeing procurement for the armed forces.
Given his ambition, his record and the scale of the challenges the state is facing, procurement alone would be a narrow brief. From the outset, he has set himself a stark strategic target: to kill 50,000 Russian troops a month and make the war unsustainable for Moscow.
The president, meanwhile, wants even more from him: to shield the skies from Shahed-type drones, to “sort out” the contentious practice known as “busification” and to make military contracts work in practice, not on paper, while ramping up drone deliveries to the front. [“Busification” is a term that emerged in Ukrainian public debate to describe a controversial method of forced conscription during the ongoing Russian invasion, in which men are detained in public places such as streets, markets, bus stops or workplaces and taken in vans or minibuses to recruitment centres, often with limited time to prove exemptions, deferments or medical ineligibility.]
In effect, Fedorov is expected to tackle a long list of problems that defeated both his predecessors and the General Staff.
A few days after his appointment, he gathered journalists for an off-the-record briefing. For nearly three hours he spoke about areas he knows best, including drones and military technology. He also flagged “blank spots” such as mobilisation and fortifications, saying he needed more data and time to get a full grip on them.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Fedorov arrived unusually well-briefed, at least in his home territory.
He talks comfortably about the depth of the kill zone on both sides of the front, about how that same kill zone prevents some artillery from reaching enemy positions, and about where Ukraine’s defences remain vulnerable to Shahed-type attacks. He argues the defence forces need cheap missiles and lots of them.
He also appears alert to the everyday irritants that sour relations between the military and the state and has already taken steps to smooth them, as shown by the recent automation of drone distribution.
Even as minister for digital transformation, Fedorov kept a close eye on which military teams needed reinforcement, particularly in anti-aircraft drones, Oleksandr Yarmak, commander of the DarkNode battalion in the 412th Nemesis Brigade, told Ukrainska Pravda:
“When we achieved significant success in spring 2025 in shooting down Shaheds with anti-aircraft drones, Mykhailo’s team did everything possible to ensure the state provided some of the most effective interceptor drones and radar systems. Consultations happened at any time of day and it was very constructive work."
“Almost everything Fedorov is talking about now is about the battlefield," said MP Roman Kostenko, a member of the parliamentary security committee. And that’s the remit of the General Staff. But who said the defence ministry should be just a procurement body? The chain of command is completely broken. The way it should be is president – minister – General Staff. The minister should be the General Staff's direct superior. The General Staff should not be a separate organism. There should be one chain of command for everything, as in the interior ministry.”
Fedorov, both at the Ministry of Digital Transformation and now at the Ministry of Defence , has pushed a simple creed: performance must be measurable. He argues decisions should be data-driven, commanders should be ranked transparently and the military should move faster towards a single system for all drone operations, Mission Control.
That approach offers an obvious upside: speed and transparency. But frontline soldiers add a quiet warning of their own. War is not a spreadsheet, and not everything that matters can be captured in numbers.
Units that top the e-scores rankings, and which tend to impress Fedorov, often do not carry responsibility for a defined stretch of the front. They often have a privilege of picking the “juiciest” targets in terms of e-points rewards, sidestep coordination with neighbouring units – for instance by not sharing live feeds or tactics – and are frequently prioritised when it comes to staffing. [E-scores is an internal scoring system in the Ukrainian Armed Forces used to track soldiers' frontline service and performance, influencing pay, leave and career incentives.]
For mechanised brigades, by contrast, it's a tough battle simply to secure a couple of infantry recruits from training centres.
Bet on bloggers and volunteers who know the military from the inside
After taking office, Fedorov dismissed five deputy ministers inherited from his predecessor. Those who he retained were mainly military deputies, including Ivan Havryliuk, Yevhen Moisiuk and Yurii Myronenko, brought over part of his team from the Ministry of Digital Transformation. He also appointed several new advisers.
It was those advisers who drew the most attention and, to some extent, unease among some military, including the General Staff. Among the advisers were Serhii Sternenko and Serhii Beskrestnov, known as “Flash”. Critics questioned Sternenko’s past and Beskrestnov’s expertise, while others argued they were civilians who had not joined the armed forces during the full-scale war, a complaint that quickly gained traction on social media.
However, working on the front lines since 2022 and gathering information for this article in particular, Ukrainska Pravda has not encountered a single soldier who was dissatisfied with the cooperation with the Sternenko Community Foundation. In 2022 and 2023 it supplied the military with FPV drones in large numbers. Later it added fibre-optic FPV drones, interceptors for Russian reconnaissance “wings” and dedicated interceptors for Shahed-type drones.
“Sternenko is our main sponsor," said Viktor Pecherytsia, commander of the Signum battalion. "Over the course of the full-scale war, he has bought us 5,000 drones worth UAH146.3 million [US$3.4 million]. In 2025, he provided 1,931 drones worth UAH80 million [US$1,9 million]. Without him, we would not have grown to the level we are at now.”
Signum was among the first units in 2025 to start downing Shahed-type drones over the line of contact using inexpensive Ukrainian-made interceptor drones supplied by Sternenko’s foundation.
“Sternenko has built a top-tier foundation. It consistently delivers quality drones and bails us out when shortages hit. It also listens to the military and acts on feedback," said a source in the Shershni Dovbusha (Hornets of Dovbush) UAV battalion of the 68th Separate Jaeger Brigade.
In a brief comment to Ukrainska Pravda, Sternenko said his focus as an adviser is to improve the quality and logistics of FPV drones supplied to the armed forces under state contracts. He said he will also gather feedback from units on how these drones are used in combat.
Serhii “Flash”, head of the public organisation, Centre of Radio Technologies, and a well-known military blogger who writes about communications, electronic warfare and electronic signals intelligence, and who also studies samples of Russian weaponry, will have a fairly wide range of tasks in Fedorov’s team.
He will maintain contact with the military, determine the armed forces’ technical needs, study the experience of Russian troops and propose actions to stay ahead of them.
“My task is to anticipate the future and stop playing catch-up," Flash tells UP about his role in Fedorov’s team. “When we spent six months working on anti-aircraft drones, the Russians were already thinking about how to counter them. As soon as the enemy can no longer fly anti-aircraft Shaheds, it will start flying a jet-powered mini-missile, the Geran-5, at speeds of 500-600 km/h. For now, they fly standard Shaheds at speeds of 200 km/h, and jet-powered ones at 300 km/h. We already need to be preparing for this now.”
When asked why Flash decided to agree to work with Fedorov, he said that he believed “something would change for us”.
“All the previous ministers knew I existed and knew everything I wrote about, but they were all indifferent," said Flash. "Whereas Fedorov said: ‘I read you, I know what people say about you, I need you on my team, I am ready to give you a free hand.’ Now I can reach out to any institution.”
What the military expect from Fedorov
As one of the corps' chief of staff told UP, “The best thing Fedorov can do right now is to surround himself with the military.” By this, he meant that it is critically important for the military to be heard directly by the state at this stage of the war, and for the defence minister to understand the people he will be working for, rather than merely assessing their performance through e-scores.
All the measurable expectations voiced by our sources can be grouped into three categories: strategy, technology and digitalisation, and people.
Experienced corps officers to whom UP spoke insisted that the defence forces urgently need a military strategy. And in addition to being formulated to address the current state of the war, it must also be adaptable to future challenges, including demographic ones.
Ukraine, as a country at war, will soon approach a point at which the phrase “there are no people left at the front” will cease to be a metaphor.
None of our sources rely on negotiations with Russia mediated by the United States, nor do they expect the war to end or be frozen this year or next. Nor do they believe that Russia will limit itself to seizing Donetsk Oblast.
“We need to determine clearly what we are fighting for, so as not to waste resources for nothing," one corps officer told UP. “We also need to realistically assess the capabilities of the Unmanned Systems Forces – what we can and cannot do with drones. Perhaps it makes sense to pull back 1.5-3 km from the forward edge and arm the infantry with the simplest drones. That would give us greater control over the line of contact.”
“It must be clearly defined in our victory strategy how, with what forces and means, and where exactly we are supposed to stop the enemy," adds Oleksandr Yarmak from the Nemesis Brigade.
Servicemen from more technologically advanced units interviewed by UP expect the following from the new minister:
– the supply of drones that will fly "straight out of the box," meaning they will not require additional modifications in unit workshops
– the ability to order and quickly receive ground robotic systems, which should move from being an “exclusive asset of top-tier units” to becoming expendables, like standard first-person view (FPV) drones
– the digitalisation of most paper-based processes.
“At present, most drones are procured by the Defense Procurement Agency, and it is no secret that they can be ineffective," the FPV operator from the 68th Brigade mentioned above explains. “A smaller proportion we order ourselves directly through Fedorov’s Brave1 project [using earned e-scores]. If we were allowed to order more drones and ground robotic systems ourselves via Brave1, then firstly we would benefit from it, and secondly the Ministry of Defence would see which products are actually in demand and which are the result of backroom deals and kickbacks.”
Meanwhile, brigade commanders of line units and officers who work directly with personnel are convinced that the number one problem is poor-quality mobilisation and the shameful level of pay for servicemen, especially those operating away from the front line and in the rear.
Despite significant technological progress, Ukraine is not fighting – and will not be fighting in the near future – exclusively with drones. The army needs people.
“We pulled the headquarters back because the kill zone expanded, and now I have to pay someone working on my headquarters staff UAH 20,000 [about US$460.]. How is anyone supposed to live on that kind of money? To pay even remotely decent salaries, do I have to create a fake CO [a combat order that determines the size of the payment], or what?," fumes a corps officer currently serving in Donetsk Oblast.
“Everyone has forgotten about even minimal benefits packages for soldiers," adds the commander of a brigade stationed near Pokrovsk.
Among the non-measurable expectations that the military have of Fedorov, which we encountered, is fairness – even though, objectively, this is unlikely to depend on him alone. This refers to honest mobilisation and clear terms of service.
The continued evolution of the military leadership
Will Fedorov’s appointment lead to changes in the country’s military leadership?
Yes. Given both the new minister’s plans and his ambitions (in the best sense of the word), it can be confidently predicted that Fedorov will promote new people within the military hierarchy.
And, most likely, he has a fairly broad mandate from the president to do so.
Within his first week in post, Fedorov became the first defence minister to add a new, fourth deputy commander’s post into the relatively closed structure of the Air Force Command. A conditional “deputy for small air defence”. And the person he “appointed” was someone entirely outside the system, Pavlo Yelizarov.
Before the full-scale war, Yelizarov, better known as “Lazar”, was a businessman and a producer of Savik Shuster’s talk show. Since 2022, he has become the founder, commander and sponsor of the National Guard’s separate special-purpose detachment, Lasar’s Group.
Yelizarov will be responsible for small air defence, particularly the operation of interceptor drones, mobile fire groups and similar elements within the Air Force. Essentially, everything that the Air Force itself does not particularly lay claim to.
“We are still more focused on issues of strategic defence. Perhaps it is a good thing that someone new has been appointed [to the small air defence branch]," one source close to the Air Force Command told UP.
Aircraft, surface-to-air missile systems and everything related to “classical aircraft” remain under the authority of Air Force Commander Anatolii Kryvonozhko.
Over four years of large-scale war, Yelizarov has made a career leap that is extraordinary by army standards – from soldier to colonel. In peacetime, even under the most favourable circumstances, such advancement would take at least 15 years.
There is, however, at least a partial explanation for this: a major war and major effectiveness.
Lasar’s Group is one of the most effective UAV units within the defence forces. During the full-scale war, as reported by Forbes Ukraine, Lasar’s Group has destroyed Russian equipment worth more than US$12 billion – roughly 7% of Russia’s army budget for 2026. By the end of 2025, Lasar’s Group also ranked among the top 10 units by the number of e-scores earned.
In essence, Yelizarov’s appointment is a continuation of the evolution of the military leadership, in which effective commanders rise to top positions in the army.
“Lazar has been working with Misha [Fedorov] since the very first days. He was not just an ideologue of the Unmanned Systems Forces – he took this idea, shaped it and made it a reality," says one officer who has long worked on UAVs and countering Shaheds. “It was Pasha [Yelizarov] who came up with the Starlink drones [large drones that operate via satellite communications], and it was on the basis of those that the Ukrainian Nemesis drones were developed. It was Pasha’s guys who burned Russian columns of equipment.”
The only caveat is that Lasar’s Group has never operated as a unit of the small air defence, meaning that it was not itself responsible for shooting down Shaheds, an area for which Yelizarov will now be responsible.
The leads in shooting down Russian Shaheds with interceptor drones are the 412th Nemesis Separate Unmanned Systems Brigade, the 414th Magyar's Birds Brigade and the Alpha Special Operations Centre of the Security Service of Ukraine.
“Lazar does not actually need to shoot down those Shaheds himself; he needs to organise the work – to build a layered defence, and that is something he knows how to do. He is an excellent manager," the officer explains..
“I view [Lazar’s appointment] positively and am fully prepared to support him," adds Yarmak from the 412th Brigade. "He faces an extremely difficult task – 1,400 km of airspace that needs to be fully and comprehensively covered. Such systems and lines do not yet exist anywhere in the world, and on top of that we have very little time."
A separate small air defence command is being formed within the Air Force under Yelizarov. Colonel Yevhenii Khliebnikov has been appointed to head this command.
The news of Khliebnikov’s appointment to the Air Force Command is essentially the only publicly available reference to him that can be found online. For security reasons, as the Ministry of Defence explained to UP, there is only a minimal amount of information about him.
What can be disclosed publicly is the following: Khliebnikov fought for Donetsk Airport; he has worked in the General Staff since 2018; in early 2022, he commanded units that used Bayraktar drones to destroy Russian forces in Kyiv and Chernihiv oblasts; and in the summer of the same year he took part in planning and conducting the operation to liberate Zmiinyi (Snake) Island.
***
In order to fulfil the tasks set by the president – “closing the sky”, improving the mobilisation process, weeding out ineffective drone manufacturers, and so on – Fedorov will have to take many unpopular decisions.
He will also have to go through several rounds of clashes with the military hierarchy and, in particular, with the General Staff, which is highly likely to resist interference in its work.
Still, even the most ardent opponents of change will be pleased if Fedorov succeeds. If he manages to break Russia technologically and give Ukraine the ability to hold out longer. Even if only for one more day.
Author: Olha Kyrylenko, Ukrainska Pravda Translation: Ganna Bryedova and Anna Kybukevych Editing: Shoël Stadlen