Kiev protesters and their cardboard posters: ‘Swap the POWs — don’t change what’s already working!’; ‘Why the f**k do I need a system that works against me?’; ‘Is this really progress, or is it just degradation?’ – Screenbrab Social Media/X

Is it the cardboard revolution?

We have been reporting here on TGP about Kiev Regime leader Volodymyr Zelensky’s latest shakeup in his government, and how it may have been prompted by upcoming corruption charges against his former ambassador to the US, as you can read in Zelensky’s Latest Government Reshuffle Was Triggered by New Incoming Corruption Scandal – Ukrainian Ambassador to the US Olga Stefanishyna Will Reportedly Be Charged.

We also reported on how Zelensky created an internal brawl in Ukraine by his decision to oust ‘35-year-old tech prodigy and reformer’, defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov’ – a name admired by Ukraine’s partners and citizens.

Today, Kiev saw its second day of protests – something that had only ever happened last year, when Zelensky tried to defang the anti-corruption agencies NABU and SAPO.

Cardboard Maidan in Ukraine!

The Minister of Defense has been fired!

The crisis in Kiev: resignations, protests and the redistribution of power.
Ukraine is on the verge of political collapse and military defeats.
Personnel purges and the “cardboard… pic.twitter.com/6VVXIPm3El

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) July 17, 2026

Politico reported:

“The reason: Fedorov’s acrimonious relationship with Ukraine’s Army Commander Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, which spilled into public view during a series of briefings Thursday that highlighted tensions in Zelensky’s top team.

‘Those two could not work together. A wartime president must not face such choices, honestly. I want unity, but the sides did not find it. I respect both’, Zelensky said at a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday. ‘They even refused to sit at the same table without me’, he added. ‘I had to make a choice’.”

Mass protests have erupted across Ukraine, including in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Sumy, Cherkasy, and Dnipro, in response to President Zelenskyy’s decision to dismiss Defense Minister of Ukraine, Mykhailo Fedorov, who had become popular among Ukrainian pic.twitter.com/ETo0cd4Nit

— Forbidden News (@NewsForbiddenX) July 16, 2026

Fedorov was only six months in office, and his dismissal shocked Ukrainian service members and watchdogs — as well as the country’s foreign handlers.

“Zelensky announced that spy chief Yevhenii Khmara, who is acting head of Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency, will fill the vacancy — but only in an acting capacity until he can formally resign from the military to take up the civilian role.”

Protesters gathered in central Kyiv, calling on authorities to reject the resignation of Defense Minister Fedorov.

Demonstrators used cardboard signs with slogans like «DON’T TOUCH WHAT WORKS» to demand stability within the military leadership. pic.twitter.com/9HQARZilKT

— KyivPost (@KyivPost) July 16, 2026

“’When the president said he has no plans to fire [Syrskyi], I accepted and was ready to learn how to work with him, because we both have one goal — to serve the Ukrainian people. But what we faced was that all our initiatives were blocked. Syrskyi was not ready to openly discuss problems, but was instead plotting against us and finally set an ultimatum for me to be out’, Fedorov said at a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday. ‘Instead of figuring out how to asymmetrically defeat Russia, which is the task of the commander-in-chief, he figured out how to split the country’, Fedorov added.”

Read more:

Zelensky Fires ‘Reformist’ Defense Minister Fedorov, and Now There’s Reported Turmoil in the Ukrainian Military

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