Mykhailo Albertovych Fedorov (born 21 January 1991) is a Ukrainian politician who served as the Minister of Defence of Ukraine from January to July 2026, when he was dismissed from office by President Zelenskyy.
He served as a Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation from 2019 to March 2023. On 21 March 2023 his duties and title was expanded to Deputy Prime Minister for Innovation, Education, Science and Technology – Minister for Digital Transformation. From 17 July 2025 to 13 January 2026, Fedorov had served as the First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine and the Minister of Digital Transformation in the government of Yulia Svyrydenko.
Biography Fedorov graduated from Zaporizhzhya National University. In 2012 during a local student festival "2012 Student Republic", he was elected a "student mayor of Zaporizhzhia" at the festival replacing Andriy Bondarenko.
Fedorov ran as a member of the 5.10 political party (led by Hennadiy Balashov) for the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's national parliament) in the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election being 166th on the party list (at its tail). The 5.10 party received only 0.42% of the vote, placing 14th among participating parties and failing to clear the 5% threshold.
Following the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election, Fedorov became an advisor to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Fedorov was on a party list of the Servant of the People political party during the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, without being a registered member of the party (non-partisan, according to the Central Election Commission).Mykhailo Fedorov. Central Election Commission. Fedorov was elected to the Verkhovna Rada in the election.
On 29 August 2019, Fedorov was appointed as Minister of Digital Transformation in the Honcharuk Government. He surrendered his deputy mandate upon his ministerial appointment. Fedorov's most important project as minister was set to be the so-called "state in a smartphone" project that was aiming that 100% of all government services should be available online by 2024, with 20% of services provided automatically, without the intervention of an official, and 1 online fill-in form to receive a package of services "in any life situation". On 5 November 2019 Fedorov wrote on Facebook that the "state in a smartphone" project would not be funded by the state budget in 2020 (but he hoped it would be in 2021) but that it would rely "on an effective team and international technical assistance, public-private partnerships, volunteering." The following day Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk stressed that each government ministry had planned expenditures for digitization and that the Ministry of Digital Transformation did have a separate budget and that thus the state budget was sufficient to launch the "state in a smartphone" project in 2020.
In August–September 2022, Fedorov attended the Digital Transformation Strategy training course at the Yale School of Management.
Fedorov was dismissed as Minister on 20 March 2023 by parliament. The same day the Verkhovna Rada received Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal's submissions on the appointment of Fedorov as the Deputy Prime Minister for Innovation, Development of Education, Science and Technology and (a return as) Minister of Digital Transformation. On 21 March 2023 he was appointed to these posts.
Minister of Defence of Ukraine On 2 January 2026, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy offered Fedorov the position of Minister of Defense. On 14 January, Fedorov was appointed as Minister of Defence of Ukraine by the Verkhovna Rada. He made an announcement the same day that the pressures on the Ukrainian defence forces included two million Ukrainians evading mobilisation and 200,000 serving soldiers having gone AWOL. He is the fourth minister to hold this position since the Russian invasion.
He ordered defence ministry and army audits that The Economist reported discovered overspending of ₴300 billion ($6.6 billion). He started an open-tender competitive procurement system, which he stated cut the cost of artillery shells by about 16%. Agreement of a soldiers' reform package was delayed until June 2026, which almost trebled the pay of frontline infantry, introduced fixed term contracts of between 6 and 24 months, and planned to soon start limited demobilisation for the longest-serving soldiers. However some army generals were sceptical of his changes.
Seven months after his appointment as the Ukraine's Defence Minister, Fedorov was dismissed following the resignation of the Prime Minister and several other ministers as part of President Zelenskyy's governmental reshuffle.
Air Land Economy During his time in office, Fedorov was responsible to develop and present a defence strategy called AIR LAND ECONOMY, which focused on three pillars: protecting the sky, deterring the enemy on the ground, and exhausting the Russian economy.
In the area of air defence, several initiatives were implemented by June 2026. The strategic goal was set to achieve a 95% interception rate of aerial targets. A deputy commander of the Air Forces, (Pavlo Yelizarov), was appointed to oversee the development of "small" air defense systems, which include mobile fire groups, anti-aircraft artillery, and interceptor drones. Under an experimental "private" air defence project for enterprises, 30 organisations of various ownership types from Kharkiv, Odesa, Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, Poltava, Zakarpattia, and other regions joined the network; these groups successfully downed a jet-powered Shahed drone traveling at speeds over 400 km/h. Following a directive from President Zelenskyy, testing began on low-cost interceptor missiles designed to shoot down Shahed drones, aiming to scale up production ahead of the autumn-winter period. Between February and April 2026, the construction rate of anti-drone net protection along highways doubled to 8.5 km per day, ultimately securing over 1,170 km of logistic routes. Additionally, a member of the Brave1 defense-tech cluster developed the first Ukrainian guided aerial bomb (KAB), which completed testing and was cleared for combat deployment.
The second pillar of the AIR LAND ECONOMY strategy focuses on strengthening the frontline, aiming to inflict at least 200 casualties on the adversary for every square kilometre of territorial advancement. According to verified data from the "yeBaly" tracking system, Russian military personnel killed or severely wounded numbered 34,544 in December 2025, 35,351 in March 2026, and 35,203 in April 2026. A key factor in the increasing adversary losses was the deactivation of Starlink for Russian users in February 2026, responding to the enemy's exploitation of the technology to coordinate drone attacks against civilians; in cooperation with SpaceX, a terminal verification mechanism via a whitelist system was introduced.https://mod.gov.ua/news/v-ukrayini-vprovadzhuyetsya-verifikacziya-terminaliv-starlink-dlya-protidії-rosijskomu-povitryanomu-teroru
Within this ground domain, a series of digital and organisational reforms were implemented. The "Mission Control" module was launched within the DELTA system to enable real-time management of drone operations, including asset tracking, coordination with EW and air defense units, and efficiency analytics. The Ministry of Defence, together with the General Staff, launched the "Logistics Lockdown" initiative to systematically dismantle Russian supply capabilities within an operational depth of up to 150 km, allocating ₴5 billion for the initial stage to procure middle-strike capabilities. Through the DOT-Chain Defence digital marketplace, the military received 485,000 UAVs and other hardware valued at ₴31.4B in 2026. More than 2,000 specialist positions were opened to build an IT vertical within the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The "A1" Defence AI Centre was established with support from the UK government to train artificial intelligence models on real combat data. Paper-based duplicate reporting was abolished in military units using digital accounting software, the drone distribution workflow was fully digitised—reducing delivery times from warehouses to frontline units two- to three-fold down to roughly one day, and purchasing procedures for explosives were streamlined for ammunition manufacturers. Serhii Sternenko was appointed advisor to the minister on the tactical application of UAVs. Under the ministry's oversight, the Defence Procurement Agency contracted for a record-breaking number of multicopters in January and February.
Exerting economic pressure on Russia constitutes the third pillar of the AIR LAND ECONOMY strategy. In March 2026, Ukraine launched successful long-range strikes against key Russian export oil terminals in Primorsk, Ust-Luga, and Novorossiysk, disrupting maritime logistics, decelerating export volumes, and elevating Russia's financial costs of waging war.
In February 2026, during a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group (Ramstein format), international partners confirmed a US$38B assistance budget for Ukraine for 2026, with the core drone, air defence, and Patriot missile coalition comprising the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Sweden. Following the April 2026 UDCG meeting, US$4B was allocated toward strengthening air defence alongside over US$1.5B for UAVs, while the UK announced its largest-ever drone delivery package to Ukraine. In May 2026, Norway funnelled over US$302M into the PURL fund mechanism, including funding for Patriot missiles, while Canada injected US$200M into the same procurement channel. Fedorov systematically coordinated diplomatic cooperation with foreign governments, defense ministries, and global tech corporations to drive foreign direct investment into Ukraine's defense industry. Additionally, under the UNITE program in 2026, the first "Brave NATO" tech competition was introduced, establishing a collaborative framework for companies from Ukraine and NATO countries to co-develop defense products for the Ukrainian battlefield, with a primary focus on countering UAVs.
During an official visit to Germany in April, Fedorov signed three defense agreements totaling approximately €4B, focused on bolstering air defence, developing deep-strike weapon capabilities, and manufacturing drones. Germany agreed to finance a contract for several hundred Patriot missiles, deliver 36 IRIS-T launchers, invest €300M into long-range capabilities, and engage in the joint production of 5,000 AI-assisted mid-strike drones.
Dismissal
On 15 July 2026, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed Fedorov from his position as Defence Minister after serving six months in office. The dismissal came the day after Ukraine’s parliament accepted the resignation of prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko and prompted public protests in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, with demonstrators calling for Fedorov’s reinstatement. Media reports linked Fedorov's removal to his conflict with the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi.
On 28 August 2026, Fedorov agreed to become an advisor to Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto. His press service said he would stay in Kyiv and continue to focus on his work in Ukraine.
Defence Forces Transformation