The dismissal of the Ukrainian Minister of Defense, Mykhailo Fedorov, has generated a wave of protests and indignation in the streets. In cities like Kyiv and Kharkiv, protesters carried banners with strong slogans: "Shame", "Don't destroy what works", or "Power belongs to the people". These demonstrations, reminiscent of those in 2025 when President Zelensky tried to enact a controversial law that threatened the independence of anti-corruption bodies, demonstrate the institutional instability the country is going through, which began this week with the government's restructuring and the fall of Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko. Fedorov is a popular politician who has the backing of Ukraine's military advances in recent months, which are supported, for example, by the effort of technological modernization with the use of drones.

In recent months, Ukraine has deployed a successful campaign ofdeep attacks on Russian refineries and supply routes to Crimea with medium-range drones, which has generated optimism among European allies and Western analysts. But, despite these good results, the advance of Russian troops in Donbas – a region formed by the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, the latter almost completely occupied – seems inexorable and has accelerated with the battle of Kostiantynivka, an enclave south of the large Ukrainian defensive line in Donetsk, where Ukraine still holds a quarter of the territory.

Yuriy Zarko, mayor of Bilopíl·lia, works about twelve hours a day. Whether delivering supplies to a retired woman, in a meeting about the Russian mines scattered around the area or visiting a courtyard where a projectile has fallen, this public servant, always accompanied by his drone detector, walks the streets of his hometown, which before the war had about sixteen thousand inhabitants. "Now there must be about six thousand, but we don't know; before the conflict I managed about twenty square kilometers of land, but now, due to the reorganization of the front, my responsibility has extended to 500. Many community leaders have left, but I have decided to stay, they are my people and I am the head of the council," he says with a vital and bitter smile.