Transcription
So, we've just received the news that Ukraine's defense minister, Fedorov, has been dismissed by President Zelenskyy of Ukraine. Deeply disappointing a lot of people, to say the least, myself included. And it's also caused a lot of people to be very concerned about the future of Ukraine, Ukraine's military, but also Ukraine in general. And personally speaking, I was really hoping that this wouldn't happen. Because when it comes to Fedorov, I really liked the guy and I really respected him, more than I respect most people who hold political offices. Because he actually did something that was incredibly rare. He actually got the job done and he got it done quickly. In fact, even though he was only in his role for approximately 6 months, he was responsible, for example, for a lot of the daily update videos that I get to make on this channel. Because he innovated so quickly and caused Ukraine to be able to take advantage of Russian weaknesses in innovative ways that frankly the Russians found surprising. Because this was a man who didn't think like the traditional military leadership and therefore he could do things that traditional military leadership on the Russian side simply wasn't expecting. So, it's certainly a big blow to lose this man. We still don't know what the future holds, but even if we get somebody good in the office, it is sad to see somebody who's been so good at their job go by the wayside.
With that being said, I do see though a conversation going on as this is just starting. Where a lot of people don't really know what to make of this. A lot of people are disappointed. But they don't really understand why what's happened has happened. And because of that, a lot of the gaps in knowledge are being filled with anger, which may be justified or it may not be justified. It's too early to really say. So, what I wanted to do in this video was, as an outsider, kind of tell both sides of the story because right now I actually don't see that being done. I only see one side of the story being told. And it doesn't mean that that side is necessarily incorrect, but how can you know it's correct if you haven't even heard the other side? And I think I'm actually uniquely equipped to do this as an outsider who lives in the United States who doesn't have a stake in the fight of the internal politics of Ukraine. I'm not emotionally invested here other than the fact that I want Ukraine to succeed and do well. The Ukrainian people will decide for themselves the best path forward for them. But as an outsider, I actually think I can get some more clarity of thought. And it's not just me saying that, I have experienced that with other outsiders speaking into, for example, the political situation within my own country. Where within my own country, the narrative is this or that when it comes to our presidential elections, but you just hear some things from people who aren't directly involved that are so insightful and help you realize that things aren't always what they appear to be on the surface.
So, what I'll do in this video is I will describe the reasons why people are concerned about how Federov was released and why he was released. And why people in Ukraine in particular are worried that this could be because of corruption, and that's deeply disturbing. But I'll also describe the other side, which I personally find more compelling, though of course either side could be true. And that's the side that sees this not as inherently corrupt, but as a tough leadership decision that had to be made, at least in the mind of President Zelenskyy, even if we disagree with it. So, that he was not acting in terms of corruption, he was just making a decision that from his perspective seemed good, and that a lot of other people think was a bad decision.
So, let's start this discussion by talking about why people are concerned. And indeed, there are some good data points here that would seem to support that concern, especially when viewed on the surface. Really, the underlying concern here comes from a long history of Ukrainian corruption. And people are worried that this is just another episode in that corruption. And this is really an unfortunate fact about Ukraine's history and their present. As a post-Soviet country, Ukraine's political systems have been reacting to that corruption ever since Ukraine's inception as an independent country. And Ukraine has even had oligarchs similar to the Russian oligarchs that they have been fighting against. Now, to be very fair, Ukraine has done a much better job of this than other countries like Russia or Belarus. But at the same time, that job is certainly not finished. And it would be a lie to say that there is zero corruption in Ukraine, as it would be a lie to say that there's zero corruption in probably any government. Because of Ukraine's history in particular, when it comes to their politics, whenever people see an episode that they don't agree with or that they don't understand, their first inclination is to view that as probable corruption. And nobody can really blame them for it. In fact, maybe it's the right thing to do country with a history like theirs. And certainly in the case of Federov, there are some reasons to believe that there could have been corruption involved in this. First and foremost is just Federov in general, who is this outsider, this young guy, in a system where a lot of the key players actually still date back to Soviet times and Soviet influences. Federov in particular has been trying to change policies when it comes to the military, and especially when it comes to procure- -ment that have been seen by a lot of people as upsetting the power and especially the profits of Ukraine's traditional players, giving an incentive for these players to want Federov to be removed. And indeed, Federov actually recently did an audit of the Ukrainian military, where he found something like 300 billion units of Ukrainian currency were overspent, equivalent to approximately 6.6 billion US dollars, which is a big sum. And when people hear about military budgets being overspent, and then they see the guy who discovered that getting dismissed, they automatically think corruption. So, that's the reasons people are concerned and potentially valid, and people really should dive deep into this and look carefully. They don't want to just sweep it under the rug.
On the other hand, though, that's not the only way to interpret what happened here, especially when it comes to this audit. There's a lot of interesting factors here that actually seem to point away from the corruption narrative. First, there's the audit itself and what it actually discovered and how it was actually used. And then there's the actual set of circumstances that led to Fedorov's dismissal, which actually seems to speak away from this idea that there was some kind of oligarch or elite power pressuring Zelenskyy to do this. So, first, let's just look at the defense audit itself. What that audit actually found was that budgets were overspent. It didn't find that funds were, for example, misappropriated in these huge sums. It didn't find that the funds were unaccounted for, which would be the case in corruption. It found that the funds were overspent, which speaks to a problem, but not the same problem that everybody's worried about. Basically here, Fedorov found potential incompetence or a lack of discipline in military spending. And that is actually somewhat understandable in an organization the size of the Ukrainian military facing the problems the Ukrainian military is facing. If you are expanding your military in a bunch of different directions trying to fight the Russians all over the place, and nobody has enough resources, people are going to overspend, especially when you just think of the individual dynamic, where you have to tell your soldiers that you can't get them the equipment they need because the budget just isn't there. There's a big incentive for people who aren't necessarily corrupt, they're just looking after their soldiers, to find ways to get that budget to be overspent beyond what they're technically allowed to spend. And this is almost certainly the vast majority of what Fedorov's audit actually found. Now, was he going to introduce discipline to try to fix that? We don't really know. We haven't seen the big response to this audit, but what we didn't see in response to this audit was Fedorov coming out with a smoking gun saying, "Look over here at these corrupt people who are stealing the government's money." And so, that's not actually how Fedorov himself used that audit, and so it would probably be inappropriate to use the audit that way to suggest that corruption was the reason that Fedorov was dismissed. I think that's a massive point in and of itself. Most things that appear to be corruption on the surface, not all, but most, when understood properly, you realize there are good explanations for these things. So, that's square one.
The next thing we need to look at is the actual circumstances around Fedorov's dismissal. And it's important to say that in a lot of ways, this is just not unprecedented. Since 2022, Ukraine has had several defense ministers with short terms. And in fact, the guy leading up to Fedorov was also dismissed after a term of approximately 6 months. Now, you could argue that that in and of itself is a problem, and I might agree with you. I don't personally agree that it's a good idea to keep cycling through leadership every 6 months before you've given people a chance to succeed as a general principle. However, that doesn't mean you could never do that. It doesn't mean that that's a true fact in every single circumstance. And it also, even if it is a problem, and even if the Ukrainian people are upset about that, and they actually want to vote out Zelenskyy because of that, it's still not the same problem as corruption, which is what is being claimed by a lot of people, either explicitly or implicitly. So, it's very, very important to be precise about that. And in fact, the actual circumstances surrounding Fedorov's dismissal in particular, it just wouldn't be the circumstances that in my opinion we would expect if there was corruption pushing Zelenskyy to remove this guy. Because Fedorov was not removed individually. He was removed as a reshuffling of the entire government that started with the dismissal of the Prime Minister of Ukraine. And Ukrainian law and their constitution, when the Prime Minister is dismissed, that automatically triggers the resignations of everybody who was part of their cabinet. And then you can choose if you want to keep those people or if you want to replace them. In this case, Zelenskyy chose to replace Fedorov. We'll talk more about why he might have done that, so you can see whether or not you agree with that in just a moment. But the point here is that it wasn't just Fedorov being singled out. It was a larger government reshuffle. And at least what we're being told, probably impossible for anybody to confirm 100%, but what we're being told is the reason this Prime Minister was dismissed was because they weren't autonomous enough for Zelenskyy. They kept going to Zelenskyy for everything and asking him permission and his opinion instead of just making decisions. And Zelenskyy found that to not be helpful. He needed somebody who could make their own decisions without him babysitting them. And in that case, if indeed true, which seems more likely than not, this argues against something that we've also heard, which is that Zelenskyy is just getting rid of everybody to replace them with loyalists who will do what he says. Because he already had in place a Prime Minister who was going to do everything he said, who was paranoid and always asking him for permission about everything. And in fact, that's why they got dismissed. So, the idea that you would get rid of somebody like that to put in somebody who's going to be more willing to do your will and your bidding, like a dictator, like, you know, Putin in Russia does, it actually just doesn't make a lot of sense.
So, with all that in mind, we see that while the dismissal of Fedorov was deeply disappointing to a lot of people, including myself, it also wasn't unprecedented by any means. In fact, when we compare Fedorov's term, the day he started and the day he ended to his predecessor, it's like remarkably uncanny. These guys almost served the exact same term, practically to the day. The reason a lot of people are noticing this time is because they really liked Fedorov. He really did a good job, and so a lot of people really don't want to see him go. They actually can't understand why Zelenskyy would have dismissed him, and that is actually why we see the corruption narrative spreading so quickly. People are upset and they want to know why, and they're reaching for the narratives that are being offered to them. And it's not actually their fault that so many people are falling into the corruption narrative, because that is really the only narrative that's being presented to them by the news apparatus that they trust. It's actually the fault of the media for not telling both sides of the story. And perhaps if there is corruption involved here, the corruption is in the media which wants a certain outcome, and they are exploiting this particular crisis to try to drive towards that particular outcome instead of being faithful to the story as a whole. That's part of the reason I created this video.
That does though still leave an unanswered question. Why would Zelenskyy replace Fedorov when he was doing such an excellent job? And it turns out that there have been some reasons offered, but they're only being reported between the lines and they're a little bit harder to find. But, there are some stated reasons, and those stated reasons are coherent. The main reason that we're seeing here is that Fedorov had a deep disagreement with the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's military, Syrskyi. I don't know precisely the nature of that disagreement. There's some that say the dis- disagreement was about Fedorov thinking that Ukraine should be more willing to give up territory, whereas Syrsky wants soldiers to hold the line at higher costs. This is not corruption. This is a difference in leadership philosophy that can cause some problems if the disagreement continues to exist. Now, it could be manageable in and of itself it might have not been a reason to dismiss Fedorov, but when his resignation was already triggered by the dismissal of the Prime Minister and moving them into a different position, it's the right time to make a change if indeed a change did need to be made. This we see is President Zelensky making a presidential decision and that doesn't mean he got it right. He could have got it right or he could have got it wrong, but as the president of his country, I promise you he is operating on more data than the average Joe Schmo like me or you who's looking on. And this is a legitimately complicated decision that a lot of people can't appreciate if they've never actually been a people manager and they've never had to make a tough decision where they're trapped in a dilemma where whatever they do, it's going to be a bad decision and it's going to result in consequences that are undesirable. In this case though, if Zelensky really felt for whatever reason he was in a position where he had to choose between either keeping Fedorov as the Defense Minister or Syrsky as the Commander-in-Chief, you can see a lot of reasons why he would choose to keep Syrsky. Now, Syrsky has been a kind of a controversial figure among some of the Ukrainian military because he's a hard-charging leader, but at the same time we hear that about very many successful military commanders because unfortunately, it's kind of the nature of the job. Syrsky though, compared to Fedorov, he's got a lot more military experience. He's been around a lot longer and he is the person that the Ukrainian military looks to directly for leadership. So, if you have to choose between him and Fedorov, Syrsky's probably the one to keep unless you have other severe problems with Syrsky. And even if you don't agree with that decision and how it landed, you can still see why it's more complicated than just Syrsky bad Fedorov good or Fedorov bad Syrsky good. You get the picture here.
As far as Fedorov's success on the battlefield, this is probably also being factored in. And it makes the decision legitimately complicated. But I could see a world where in Zelenskyy's perspective, Fedorov has done a lot of incredibly good things and instituted a lot of reforms. But that doesn't mean that going forward, he's the best guy for the position for the long term. A lot of times in governments and in companies in general, what you need is somebody to come in and make some changes really quickly. But once they make those changes quickly, they are not as useful as they were when they first came into the position. And that could very well be the calculus that Zelenskyy's thinking through. Fedorov made a lot of good reforms. He's got the military going on a good path. Maybe that path, since the military is already going down that path, would be better trodden further from here by somebody else who isn't going to upset the rest of the system so much. I'm just explaining the decision logic. I'm not saying you have to agree with it. But I am explaining why there is a logic to it that a lot of people from the outside looking in don't appreciate. A lot of the critics, again, they've never had to make a decision like this where it's a dilemma and it's, you know, bad result whatever way you go. It's just maybe a less bad result. A lot of people have never had to make a decision about hiring or firing somebody in the first place. And so you should at least sit down and consider and think through these things before being overly frustrated at Zelenskyy, for example, in this instance. Could Zelenskyy still be wrong? Of course. Could people still arrive at that conclusion after thinking it through? Of course. And in fact, if they do that, then they'll be even more empowered to be more frustrated with Zelensky for the right reasons and they'll know what they're looking for in their next leader rather than just reacting to a news headline for example.
So, I hope this has been helpful. Again, I'm an outsider looking in. I don't get a vote in what happens from here in Ukraine. That's up to the Ukrainian people. So, I hope my outside perspective has helped you think through the issue and if you land on a different side than you did at the beginning, that's great. If you still land where you did at the beginning, that's great, too. I just want to make sure that the full story is being covered accurately so that people can think through all of the information. The reason I'm so passionate about this is because I've seen the deadly effects of how Russia uses situations like this in my own country. They have used claims about Ukrainian corruption that have been sometimes true but most often over played to influence my country to stop giving aid to Ukraine and they've been incredibly effective and it's also effective in a lot of European countries, too. And right now we see a lot of countries making these decisions about whether or not to support Ukraine. And so, of course, Russia is going to jump into this particular narrative and they're going to try to exaggerate it all the way to one side and make it look as bad as possible when genuinely I think it's a lot more complicated than that. This is a call as always to do the hard work of the critical thinking. It's very rare. Most people don't do that. But, if you do it, we'll arrive in better places overall and also as individuals we can be less frustrated overall because it's actually a lot more rare for there to be a decision that's made out of incompetence. Rather, it's most often that there are decisions that are made because of complicated factors and we don't always understand all of those factors. But, it does require some faith in our leaders while they are our leaders. And right now, President Zelenskyy is the leader of Ukraine and I think the best decision possible for Ukraine, even if they want to get rid of him, show him the boot as soon as this war is over, is to show him as much support and as much benefit of the doubt as they can muster until this thing is over. Because often the benefit of the doubt actually leads us to a conclusion that is more precise and more accurate, even if we still end up not liking the guy. At least we can be more precise and more accurate, and we can be responding to truth rather than exaggerated context or things that are taken out of context. That in mind, I hope you enjoyed the video. This was a little bit of a special episode in addition to my normal posting. Thought it was important I commented on this particular topic. So, if you watched this far, as always, be sure to like the video and subscribe to the channel. And also consider supporting my work by becoming a YouTube channel member or a patron. Thank you guys for all your support. I literally couldn't do it without you. And I'll see you on the next one.