From Starlink to 'digital officers,' Fedorov on first month as Ukraine's new Defense Minister
Ukraine's Defense Ministry is restructuring and transforming its work according to a new strategic vision and data-driven plan to implement it, recently-appointed minister Mykhailo Fedorov has told journalists.
35-year-old Fedorov, who gained frame in the years before the full-scale invasion for world-leading digitalization reforms as Digital Transformation Minister, and later pioneered Ukraine's wartime drone procurement and distribution system, was appointed Defense Minister on Jan. 14.
With the Defense Ministry — which also oversees the Armed Forces itself — at the heart of many of Ukraine's wartime challenges, the appointment was met with optimism that Fedorov's youthful energy and modern visions could bring about many of the reforms needed.
The ministry's work, Fedorov said, is being driven by an updated war strategy, rather than the passive carrying out of bureaucratic duties.
"Our team came in with a vision — not simply to act as procurement officers or policymakers, but to take real responsibility for the strategic direction of the war," he said.
Among other areas, the first month of the ministry's renewed team was focussed on improving Ukraine's air defense capabilities, particularly against mass Russian use of Shahed-type long-range attack drones.
According to the minister, a new After Action Review system — much like that used in NATO militaries — has been put in place to analyze every mass Russian attack, studying where, how, and why Russian drones and missiles were successfully intercepted.
"After every large-scale attack," Fedorov said, "we convened teams from the Ministry of Defense and the Air Force to analyze the strike: the positioning of interceptors, where Shahed drones were shot down, ballistic trajectories, how short-range air defense performed, and the consequences of each attack."
"We then made decisions on what needed improvement."
A new Air Force command has been established for short range air defense, led by new Deputy Commander Pavlo Yelizarov, who until then had led one of Ukraine's most high-technology and wildly successful strike drone units.
With Russia increasing both the number and speed of its Shahed-type drones, Ukraine's defense against them has shifted from using hundreds of mobile fire teams, to high-speed, high-tech interceptor drones, often powered by AI.
In his comments, Fedorov stressed that Yelizarov's appointment was a deliberate move to bring someone from outside the existing Air Force command structure to take charge of this new line of work.
According to the minister, the successful turning off of Russian Starlink terminals over February led to an "elevenfold" decrease in the number of livestreams used continuously by Russian forces.
After coming to an agreement with SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who Fedorov already had a relationship with since the early days of the full-scale invasion, the ministry quickly came up with a registration and anti-fraud system so that Ukrainian forces could continue to use the satellite internet terminals.
As a result of the cut-off, many aspects of Russia's day-to-day operations were disrupted, from communications to command posts, unmanned ground vehicles, and long-range drones using Starlink terminals..
Fedorov's team is also developing a "vertical of digital officers," aimed at driving innovation at corps and brigade level, and "centers of excellence" for specific areas such as deep strike drones, the minister said.
