Ukraine's Zelensky fires military chief after protests and names a replacement • FRANCE 24 English

[00:00:00]just to remind you of the whole subject and what we're talking about here. The invasion, of course, of Ukraine was launched in February 2022 by Vladimir Putin with the idea of taking the entire country and capturing of Vladimir Zelensky. The fight, of course, continues this very day to try to repel that invasion. And over the past year, 2 years, there's been a real change in how Ukraine's forces have been managing on the field. Now, one could look at perhaps the man in charge of the military as being behind that, of course, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who's enjoyed some kind of popularity within the population. But equally popular have been the defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, who's been sacked by Zelenskyy as well. So, lots happening. Let's get back now to our Kyiv correspondent, Gulliver Cragg, to give us the update on this. Gulliver, good evening to you.

[00:00:45]Let's try to relaunch you on this one then. Bring us up to date. Tell us what these changes mean, but let's not forget, of course, most of all, there is still the war going on.

[00:00:57]>> Well, this is really a victory for the protesters who took to the streets a week ago after the decision to fire Mykhailo Fedorov as defense minister.

[00:01:06]First of all, their main demand was to reinstate the defense minister, and we still don't know if that's going to happen. Fedorov's further fate is as yet unknown. Volodymyr Zelenskyy's statement didn't say anything about him, but very soon when it emerged that Mykhailo Fedorov had been fired essentially because of his conflict with the chief of staff, Oleksandr Syrskyi, protesters started demanding, in no uncertain terms, that Oleksandr Syrskyi be fired, and it really became their main demand.

[00:01:34]I was at the protest in Kyiv yesterday, and there was a strong feeling there that this was only going to be a matter of time that the protesters would be listened to and be heard by Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Even though there are no elections in Ukraine at the moment, or perhaps because there are no elections in Ukraine at the moment, public opinion expressed through protest is something that the executive feel that they absolutely have to listen to. And it was only a few thousand people in the biggest cities. In most of the regional capitals in Ukraine, there were protests, but most of them were relatively small by the standards of protest that you see in countries like France, for example. But it's considered that in wartime, people going out on the street like that, even if it's just a few thousand, it's a lot. And most importantly, um there was a strong feeling that this was a view that was shared clearly by the majority of public opinion. All sorts of opinion leaders on social media, whether in the military, whether in politics, uh whether in think tanks, were saying that uh or uh Zelenskyy had made the wrong decision by firing Fedorov, and that criticisms against Oleksandr Syrskyi were valid.

[00:02:43]And one of the main people um criticizing Volodymyr Zelenskyy's decision to fire Mykhailo Fedorov was Mykhailo Drapatyi, who the president has now announced will be replacing Syrskyi as head of the armed forces. So, he's Fedorov's ally. He is the one that Fedorov wanted to see in that place. And he is definitely the one that most of the protesters I spoke to yesterday wanted to see uh named into that position to replace Oleksandr Syrskyi.

[00:03:08]>> Oliver Craig, thank you uh for that. And of course, uh we know you'll bring us more as it develops. Oliver Craig, our correspondent uh in Ukraine. Thank you, sir.