A lack of transparency is understandable during war. There are things we aren’t meant to know as civilians: which targets our forces hit in the mass strikes, where our troops are, which internal machinery turns the decisions of this war. I’ve made my peace with that. But there is a ceiling on how many decisions can be made over our heads before something gives, and in the past few weeks the trust of the people has worn thin. As for me: I’m just tired of protesting this shit all over again.
On July 14, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko’s government was dismissed at the President’s initiative. On July 15, the President announced that Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov would not be in the new Cabinet.
By 9:01 the next morning, one minute after the daily silence for those russia has killed, people gathered to protest on Ivan Franka Square in Kyiv. By evening there were thousands, in every corner of the country. By the weekend the crowd had a clear demand, and we can’t budge on it: bring Fedorov back.
Fedorov had the job for six months. Here’s the short version of that half-year: the long-range drone campaign (our “long-range sanctions”) that has put fuel queues inside russia as far away as Moscow; russian access to Starlink, cut off at the front; strikes on logistics in occupied Crimea severed russian troops from their supply lines; a defense-tech reform that was actually moving.
None of it explains why he was let go. He was good at the job. Our capacity to defend ourselves grew, visibly, on his watch. What the fuck?
But the protests we’re seeing now aren’t only about Fedorov. He’s the final droplet in a worrying accumulation of bad decisions by those in power. The Mindich scandal — while the country rationed electricity, the people at the top were quietly skimming the energy sector. A flawed recruitment system, and no respite for Ukraine’s defenders, no transparent terms of service. The draft Civil Code, with its “good morals” clause inviting the state into our private lives. Inflation eating into everything. A Kyiv transit fare that more than tripled, for no reason. And a government reshuffled every year, so that nothing is ever steady long enough.
Too much has changed in a week, sometimes in a day, for anyone to keep up with. Too much grief at the hands of our enemy, and too many strange decisions internally, none of them explained to the public.
The protests are a déjà vu of sorts. Last July we stood on the same square with cardboard signs, over the law that gutted our anti-corruption agencies. That made no sense either. It took nine days to force a reversal. I hope the people win this time too, with Fedorov reinstated, and with him, the technological edge we can’t afford to lose. Technology is how we win.
The real demand, the one underneath all the many demands of the protest, is to keep our defenders and our people alive: to send drones and technology where it’s most dangerous, instead of people.
As for the President, I hope once more that he finds his way back to his best self. I hope his better judgment outlasts his insecurity.
Meanwhile, people go to work in the morning, go out to protest in the evening, and shelter from ballistic attacks at night. War-protest-work-life balance. Or rather, a ceaseless juggling of too many threats, trying to keep everything moving while never catching it all, never catching a break.
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