A popular former defense minister whose dismissal last month sparked protests has delivered a videotaped address to Ukrainians in which he assailed wartime corruption, warned of a systemic crisis of governance, and said the country must find a way to hold elections despite the continuing Russian invasion.
Mykhaylo Fedorov's remarks late on August 18 came hours after lawmakers said President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who abruptly pushed him out in mid-July, has asked parliament to confirm acting Defense Minister Yevhen Khmara in the role. A vote is expected on August 19.
His comments could add to pressure on Zelenskyy, who has substantial public support but has been dogged by corruption scandals and questions over the motives of a rash of recent personnel decisions. Supporters have held protests since Fedorov's dismissal.
Zelenskyy was elected to a five-year term in 2019, but martial law in place since Russia launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 means no elections have been held.
"Democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia. We are fighting precisely because we want to remain a free European state. Therefore, we must find a legal, safe and realistic mechanism that will allow Ukraine to restore a full-fledged democratic process even in the conditions of a protracted war," Fedorov said.
"This is difficult," he went on. "We need to ensure the right to vote for the military, millions of Ukrainians abroad, and people in front-line regions. We need to ensure the security of the electoral process, the independence of institutions, and trust in the result."
Wartime corruption is not just a financial problem but a question of "the ability to survive and win," he said, declaring a systemic crisis of governance in Ukraine.
In what seemed like a criticism of Zelenskyy, he said Ukrainians have always given their government a major credit of trust, especially during the war, and that this is "a huge responsibility for any government. Because a credit of trust is not the right to do everything without explanation. It is an obligation to be even more honest with society."
"This is where the simple principle of a new social contract should exist: a citizen trusts the state -- the state speaks honestly with the citizen," Fedorov said.
Zelenskyy dismissed Fedorov amid a dispute between the tech-savvy defense chief who had been in the job for just six months, and the top military commander, General Oleksandr Syrskiy, who was himself dismissed by the president days later after more than two years in the role.
Lawmakers in the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, said on August 18 that Zelenskyy had submitted his nomination of Khmara, a major general who had been acting chief of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) since January.
A vote is expected on the nomination of Khmara and the renomination of Andriy Sybiha, who has been foreign minister since September 2024. That is a necessary step because Zelenskyy triggered the full cabinet's resignation when he pushed Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko out on July 12; she was replaced by Serhiy Koretskiy.
The shakeups come as Ukraine fights to defend itself against Russia's full-scale invasion while facing a glaring shortage of air-defense missiles, due in part to a decline in supplies of US-made Patriot systems since the start of the US-Israeli war with Iran in February.
Russian missiles fired overnight damaged private homes, a cafe, a post office, a shop and several cars in the town of Pechenihiy in the eastern Kharkiv region, killing 10 people and injuring eight others, the head of the regional military administration, Oleh Synyehubov, said on Telegram.
Later on August 18, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it was told by the director of Ukraine's Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, that a drone hit a bus stop used by plant staff and subcontractors at about 6 a.m., killing one person and injuring 15 others, three of them seriously.
"No nuclear safety or security damage was reported," the IAEA said in a post on X.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi "calls on military commanders responsible for these actions as well as all others aiming on nuclear power plants and/or their staff to put an immediate stop to these unacceptable actions which...constitute great risks to nuclear safety and security during the conflict," the post said.
Russia blamed Ukraine for the drone hit. There was no immediate comment from Kyiv.
The Zaporizhzhya plant is Europe's largest nuclear power station, with six reactors. Russian forces seized it shortly after Moscow launched the full-scale invasion in February 2022, and Ukraine and Russia have traded accusations of shelling and other actions threatening the safety of the plant, which lies across the Dnieper River from Ukrainian-held territory.
A Russian drone hit a combine harvester at a separate location in the Zaporizhzhya region on August 18, killing one farm worker and injuring another, Ukrainian officials said.
