Shabunin on Fedorov’s resignation: "President has opted for old corruption schemes and Soviet generals". VIDEO

Vitaliy Shabunin, Chairman of the Board of the Anti-Corruption Action Centre (ACAC), has stated that the resignation of Ukraine’s Defence Minister is indicative of a rollback of reforms in the defence sector.

According to Censor.NET, the key reason for the dismissal was a struggle for control over finances and the system’s unwillingness to play by transparent rules.

According to Shabunin, with this personnel decision, President Zelenskyy has definitively sided with "Soviet generals and opaque rules for allocating the largest budget in the country’s history".

The head of the Anti-Corruption Action Centre considers the official justification regarding the alleged "failure of the TCR reform" to be ridiculous and unfounded. He pointed out that this is already the fourth defence minister in five years of war, so the systemic problem lies not with the ministry’s leaders, but with the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.

According to Shabunin, the real motives behind the dismissal were:

Budget control: The battle for 60 billion euros in European aid due to arrive in the coming years.
Cleaning up procurement: Fedorov has begun allocating funds based on efficiency rather than the General Staff’s subjective ‘wish lists’. Thanks to digitalisation, the military has been able to select drones themselves in a competitive environment.
Rules for long-range weapons: The final straw was the minister’s attempt to introduce competitive tendering for long-range strike capabilities (‘deep strikes’).