Fedorov himself appeared before reporters wearing his trademark plain T-shirt and delivered an unusually frank press conference.
He confirmed that his dismissal stemmed from his attempts to reform the defense ministry and from
his conflict with the General Staff and Syrsky.
“It took us four months to approve a project to supply brigades with drones because of bureaucratic infighting. For six months, we couldn’t change the structure of the Ministry of Defense because the General Staff refused to approve it. They kept saying this wasn’t written correctly, that wasn’t written correctly. In six months, we barely managed to transfer a handful of people into the ministry.”
According to Fedorov, he eventually approached Zelensky with what he believed was the only viable solution: replacing senior military commanders whom he accused of effectively sabotaging reforms:
“I never said “either me or Syrsky.’ Zelensky refused to dismiss him. Fine. I was prepared to continue working with the commander-in-chief. But after that, all of our initiatives began to be blocked. Syrsky is not prepared to speak openly about the problems. Then he issued an ultimatum. Instead of thinking about how to defeat Russia, he figured out how to divide the country.”
