After his appointment in January, Fedorov highlighted two focal points for his work: digitization and reorganizing the country’s lamentable mobilization system. He will also have to tackle deep-seated structural problems and possibly overcome bureaucratic resistance in his new ministry.
In his previous job as minister of digital transformation, the 35 year-old Fedorov introduced the Diia app, which gives smartphone access to key state functions and documents. He is expected to bring similar revolutionary change to defense.
He hit the ground running. Leveraging his digital knowledge, Fedorov reached agreement with Elon Musk to limit the Russian army’s use of Starlink terminals, creating significant problems for Moscow’s drone pilots and disrupting frontline operations.
It’s possible no one had thought to do this before, or that Musk was more open to dialogue than had been realized, but the initial effects were considerable. As the British analyst Lawrence Freedman noted: “Despite regular Russian boasts about how they are at the cutting edge of modern military capabilities, they lack anything that begins to be comparable to Starlink.”
The initiative will need constant vigilance, as the Russian military has already developed workarounds, including paying Ukrainians to register terminals, using the SIM cards of prisoners of war, and manipulating their families to gain access.
Fedorov has also emphasized the need for further technological transformation in the armed forces, announcing the creation of a unified digital system to manage all drone operations.
Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, Ukraine’s buccaneering drone commander, said this move would enable better coordination between drone units and more efficient tracking and analysis of performance. It was complemented by scaling up unmanned ground vehicle use on the frontline.
In further innovations, Fedorov has introduced engineers to develop drone technologies and outlined plans to develop laser weaponry of the kind already available to Russian commanders.
These moves, in the first month of his tenure, underscore that Federov is a man in a hurry. He seeks a change of priorities and a commitment to the ministry adopting large-scale technological modernization.
Fedorov highlighted the importance of improving the mobilization system and ordered a major investigation into the process. He stated that 200,000 Ukrainian soldiers have gone AWOL, while two million are wanted for dodging the draft.
The top of his in-tray will be reforming the Territorial Centers of Recruitment (TCR), which are responsible for mobilization and have been at the center of repeated controversies. The number of requests for investigation into mobilization violations increased to 6,127 in 2025, compared to 18 in 2022, according to Dmytro Lubinets, parliament’s human rights commissioner.
Lubinets has described a systemic crisis. Allegations against TCR include illegal restrictions on movement, perfunctory medical exams, and an excessive use of violence, even the beating to death of detained recruits.
Disputes over tactics at the front also do little to help recruitment. A “not one step back” policy prohibits local commander initiative, prevents brigades from conducting mobile defense, and leads to the needless formation of salients, putting Ukrainian forces at risk of being enveloped by enemy advances, critics say.
Delays in withdrawing forces, such as the haphazard retreat from the Kursk region, have resulted in high numbers of PoWs and significant personnel losses, with the responsibility unfairly laid at the feet of commanders.
Commander-in-Chief Olexandr Syrskyi, a notably tough officer, has been criticized over personnel losses and accused of turning a blind eye to the commanders responsible, earning him a reputation as a “butcher” among some soldiers.
Fedorov and Syrskyi have a strained relationship, according to the political journalist Yulia Zabelina, and the new minister might seek the dismissal of the commander-in-chief. Given the growing criticism of Syrskyi’s tactics, the two men’s political rivalry may also lead to an increased role for the defense ministry in military strategy.
Corruption in the ministry is another issue that Fedorov will need to tackle. Last year, the country was rocked by a major graft scandal involving money laundering in the defense and energy sectors, leading to purges in government offices.
One of Fedorov’s predecessors, Olexiy Reznikov, who served as Minister of Defense between 2021 and 2023, was dismissed after a major scandal involving a money-laundering scheme linked to food procurement for the army.
Shortly after taking the office, Fedorov fired five deputies, including those responsible for procurement, saying he wanted to “rebuild the ministry,” demonstrating both his ambitious plans and the authority he has been given by the president to restructure its work.
Such purges, alongside the switch to new technology and plans to reform mobilization, signal a transformation of the ministry’s purpose. While it has previously been associated with procurement and fulfilment of the army’s needs, Fedorov’s ambitions appear to go further.
The success of his reforms will determine whether he will fix or deepen the ongoing crises in the Ministry of Defense. The last thing the army needs is even more of the political infighting that already plagues its work.
Mykyta (Nikita) Vorobiov is a political analyst and a Master`s student at the University of Oxford, pursuing an MSc in Russian and Eastern European Studies. He holds a BA in Ethics and Politics from Bard College Berlin, where he conducted extensive research on Russian visual propaganda. For the last four years, Nikita has been publishing articles on politics and security for CEPA, VoxEurop, JURIST, and others.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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