Mykhailo Fedorov, fired as Ukraine's defense minister in July, is calling for wartime elections in the biggest internal challenge to President Volodymyr Zelensky since Russia's 2022 invasion.
Ukraine's recently fired defense minister is demanding wartime elections, throwing down the most serious internal challenge to President Volodymyr Zelensky since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. Mykhailo Fedorov, dismissed from the defense ministry in July after just six months on the job, made the call in a video address posted Tuesday night. The 35-year-old former minister accused the government of a systemic crisis of governance and said Ukraine cannot let Moscow decide when its people vote again. His remarks landed as parliament formally approved a new defense minister, closing the door on his return to the post.
Fedorov's roughly nine-minute address to Ukrainians was blunt. Democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia, he said, arguing the country is fighting precisely to remain a free European state. He called for a legal, safe and realistic mechanism that would let Ukraine restore a full democratic process even amid a prolonged war.
He stopped short of demanding an immediate vote or announcing a presidential run. But the address was widely read in Kyiv as the opening move of a potential campaign. Recent polling suggests Fedorov would comfortably beat Zelensky in a runoff if elections were held today.
Fedorov also trained fire on corruption, bureaucracy and cronyism in the presidential office, saying people cannot endlessly live in a state where they do not understand why certain decisions are made. He noted that some reforms spend months circulating through government while decisions needed at the front lines sit waiting.
Ukraine has been under martial law since the day Russia invaded in February 2022, and the constitution bars national elections while it remains in effect. Zelensky's five-year term expired in May 2024, meaning he has governed without a fresh mandate for more than two years.
Until now, no major Ukrainian political figure had publicly demanded elections during the war. Fedorov's call is the first, and it comes from a man who was once one of Zelensky's closest allies and a key figure in his 2019 presidential campaign.
Fedorov's dismissal in July, which Zelensky blamed on an unworkable feud with then-commander in chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, triggered protests across the country. Syrskyi himself was fired shortly afterward under public pressure, and demonstrations calling for Fedorov's reinstatement have continued.
The pressure on Zelensky intensified on multiple fronts Wednesday. Lawmakers approved Maj. Gen. Yevhenii Khmara, the former head of Ukraine's Security Service, as the new defense minister -- a move that effectively ends any near-term hope of Fedorov returning to the job.
At the same time, Zelensky dismissed Iryna Mudra, a deputy head of his office and one of his closest allies, after anti-corruption investigators raided her home as part of a money-laundering probe that also touched executives at a state-owned bank.
The developments come as Washington has pressed Kyiv for years to demonstrate democratic accountability. When President Trump said last year that Ukraine was using the war to delay elections, Zelensky responded that he was ready for a vote within 60 to 90 days if allies could guarantee security. Fedorov's challenge now echoes that argument from inside Ukraine's own leadership.
Zelensky's office has dismissed the elections push as unrealistic, with one anonymous official calling it highly bizarre to plan votes amid missiles and drones. Zelensky himself had not publicly responded as of Wednesday evening.
The immediate question is whether Fedorov's address becomes a rallying point for Ukraine's opposition or fades as another wartime dispute. The former minister retains deep popularity, and the protests that followed his firing show the public mood is restless. With parliament now locked in behind a new defense minister and corruption probes circling the presidential office, the political ground in Kyiv is shifting -- and for the first time since the invasion, Zelensky faces a credible rival arguing that elections cannot wait for peace.
Mykhailo Fedorov, fired as Ukraine's defense minister in July, is calling for wartime elections in the biggest internal challenge to President Volodymyr Zelensky since Russia's 2022 invasion.
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