Mykhailo Fedorov, a millennial Yale graduate, will replace former prime minister in post-scandal reshuffle

Antonia Langford

03 January 2026

Volodymyr Zelensky has appointed Ukraine’s youngest-ever minister as defence secretary, as he seeks to shore up his administration after a corruption scandal.

Mykhailo Fedorov, a 34-year-old “tech evangelist”, currently serves as Ukraine’s digital transformation minister and is the only minister to have survived a succession of government reshuffles.

Mr Fedorov joined Mr Zelensky’s team in 2019 as a strategist, before being elected to parliament for the Ukrainian president’s Servant of the People party later that year at the age of 28.

The relative political novice emerged as a prominent public face at the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, when he championed a “digital blockade” to cut Russia off from Western technology and force ordinary Russians to question their role in the conflict.

He gained prominence for a series of innovative initiatives, in 2023, creating an “Army of Robots” to carry out tasks Ukrainian soldiers would have to risk their lives to do, and earlier this year spearheading a drone scheme to “gamify” the war.

Under the scheme, front-line units accrue points for killing Russian soldiers and destroying equipment, a system likened by officials to a “kill-streak” in a video game.

Mr Fedorov, a graduate of Yale’s School of Management, is also known for his dismantling of Soviet-era bureaucratic structures.

His flagship “state within a smartphone” initiative moved the bulk of government services onto a single mobile application, boosting transparency and curbing corruption.

He has been responsible for drone procurement throughout the full-scale invasion and will come to the defence ministry already familiar with its internal workings.

Mr Zelensky said late on Friday: “Mykhailo is deeply engaged in the ‘drone line’ initiative and works very effectively on the digitalisation of state services and processes.

“Together with all our military personnel, military command, national weapons manufacturers and Ukraine’s partners, we must implement changes in the defence sector that will truly help.”

His appointment marks a broader push by Mr Zelensky to change direction after his administration was tarred by an alleged £75m kickback scheme in the energy sector, which implicated several top government officials and triggered public outrage.

The scandal led to the resignation of Andriy Yermak, Mr Zelensky’s closest ally and chief of staff, at the end of November.

Mr Yermak, who denied wrongdoing, was broadly unpopular across Ukraine because of the perception of his overbearing influence and efforts to sideline political rivals.

Much like Gen Kyrylo Budanov, the 39-year-old elite spymaster whom Mr Zelensky appointed on Friday to replace Mr Yermak as head of the presidential office, the new millennial appointee commands high public trust ratings and is broadly viewed as very competent.

Also like Gen Budanov, media and lawmakers have suggested that there had been tensions between Mr Fedorov and Mr Yermak as the latter attempted to exclude the young MP from Mr Zelensky’s inner circle.

Mr Fedorov was said to have defended Ukraine’s anti-graft institutions when the Ukrainian president sought to strip them of their autonomy in a controversial move that prompted nationwide protests in July.

He is set to replace Denys Shmyhal, a 50-year-old technocrat who led the defence ministry for six months after being Ukraine’s longest-serving prime minister from 2020-25.

Mr Zelensky has proposed appointing Mr Shmyhal to the post of energy minister, after Svitlana Hrynchuk, his predecessor, was dismissed in November when she was implicated in the corruption scandal.

Mr Zelensky’s appointment of young officials with links to the US could also be seen as an effort to build bridges with Washington amid peace negotiations.

Donald Trump said on Saturday that he was “not thrilled” with Vladimir Putin because “he’s killing too many people”, speaking at a press conference after US strikes on Venezuela early that morning.

The remarks came days after Mr Trump shared a New York Post editorial criticising Putin’s stance on peace and casting doubt on Russia’s claims that Ukraine had mounted a large-scale drone attack on Putin’s state residence in the Novgorod region.

In the piece, the Post’s board accused the Russian president of choosing “lies, hatred and death” and argued that “any attack on Putin is more than justified”.