In a statement sent to journalists on Thursday, Fedorov said his team had a “specific plan how to end the war” when he was appointed defence minister in January.<\/p>\n
The key elements were the protection of the skies, stabilisation of the front, and also strikes against Russia’s economy, he said. <\/p>\n
“For six months, we have consistently implemented this very plan. For the first time in recent years, Ukraine has begun to seize the initiative [on the battlefield].<\/p>\n
“Our collective results have created something unprecedented – a window of opportunity to force Russia into peace through strength. And we cannot afford to lose it.”<\/p>\n
He stressed that he had never been seeking any “post or status”, but only wanted to have the “opportunity to really influence the result and bring Ukraine’s victory closer”.<\/p>\n
Fedorov has already been replaced by Yevhenii Khmara, a former top official at Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU).<\/p>\n
Zelensky, who earlier this week had a meeting with Fedorov, revealed that he had offered him the post of deputy prime minister for military innovation.<\/p>\n
“This is a very important role,” the president said on Thursday, “because innovation must be co-ordinated with the leadership of the defence ministry, the commander-in-chief… and the president.”<\/p>\n
But Fedorov refused. It’s not clear if his statement means that negotiations over his future are at an end. <\/p>\n
Presidential adviser Dmytro Lytvyn said discussions were continuing “and it would be inappropriate to disclose details at this stage”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a statement sent to journalists on Thursday, Fedorov said his team had a “specific plan how to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-707550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}