Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / Sacked Ukraine defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov calls for presidential election

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Sacked Ukraine defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov calls for presidential election · DEEP INSIGHT

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ukraine's former defense minister, Mikhailo Federoff, has told the BBC
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: he stands by his call for nationwide elections even though
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: the country is at war. Mister Federoff, who was sacked
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: last month, said it was his moral right to start
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: that conversation and the vote was inevitable sooner or later.
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  Speaker 1: In a video posted online earlier in the week, mister
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  Speaker 1: Federoff said that democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia
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  Speaker 1: and accused officials in the government of corruption, saying that
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: it hurt Ukraine's war efforts against Russia. Well, let's speak
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  Speaker 1: to our news correspondent Dan Johnson, who's in Kiev. And Dan,
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  Speaker 1: we know that he interviewed mister Federoff. What stood out
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  Speaker 1: for you mostly in that interview.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I sat down with him yesterday, just a few
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  Speaker 2: days after he released that blistering video statement highlighting the
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  Speaker 2: levels of corruption that he believed ran through the Ukrainian
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: government and calling for wartime elections. He said that he
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: stood by those criticisms and that call I put to him.
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  Speaker 2: That he had opened up divisions in Ukrainian society that
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  Speaker 2: some were saying were a gift to Vladimir Putin.
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  Speaker 3: Today, a huge number of people started talking and supporting
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  Speaker 3: the idea of coming back to the democratic cycle. And
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  Speaker 3: I believe that neither Putting nor the president of any
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  Speaker 3: other country can speak about our own democracy. We are
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  Speaker 3: the only ones who will decide what we do going forward.
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  Speaker 3: That's what democracy is all about. If I cannot share
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  Speaker 3: my ideas and be open about them, then what are
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  Speaker 3: we fighting for?
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  Speaker 2: You really believe an election would be in the interests
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  Speaker 2: of Ukraine and not in your personal interests. It's what
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  Speaker 2: you can interstries.
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  Speaker 3: It's definitely in my vested interests because I want this
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  Speaker 3: word to be over and Ukraine to become a successful country.
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  Speaker 3: So yeah, this is in my for sure, but of
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  Speaker 3: course it's also in the interest of all Ukrainians. But
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  Speaker 3: if you're asking whether it will be useful for my
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  Speaker 3: political future, if I were thinking about this, I would
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  Speaker 3: not have made this statement.
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  Speaker 2: He still stopped short of directly criticizing President Zelenski, and
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  Speaker 2: he wouldn't be drawn on whether he thought the president
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  Speaker 2: could actually win an election if it were to be held.
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  Speaker 2: Mister Fedrov also wouldn't rule out running in that election.
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  Speaker 2: He said this was not about his own personal ambitions
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  Speaker 2: but when I asked him if he thought he may
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  Speaker 2: be president one day, he took the line of saying, well,
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  Speaker 2: perhaps if people thought, when the circumstances were right, if
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  Speaker 2: people thought I could be trusted with that role, then
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  Speaker 2: maybe I would consider it. But he reiterated that what
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  Speaker 2: he was doing now was not about his own personal
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: political ambitions. We spoke about a number of topics, including
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  Speaker 2: the levels of corruption in the week that a new
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  Speaker 2: investigation was announced against senior officials and lawmakers and bankers
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  Speaker 2: who were accused of money laundering. So I asked mister
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  Speaker 2: fader Off how much he thought President Zelenski may have
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  Speaker 2: been aware of allegations of corruption that are now in
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  Speaker 2: his inner circlesh.
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  Speaker 3: I think that probably you'd better ask the president about this,
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  Speaker 3: Do an interview with him, have a conversation with him
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  Speaker 3: in front of the world.
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  Speaker 2: You think he has questions to answer.
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  Speaker 3: I believe that he's ready. Why not. That's his responsibility
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  Speaker 3: to explain whether he was aware of all that or not.
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  Speaker 3: I don't want to make any assumptions.
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  Speaker 2: Do you think he may be a corrupt politician? This
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  Speaker 2: is Wes mitch as Robot's name.
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  Speaker 3: Look in all the time that I worked with him,
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  Speaker 3: not a single time I received from him any test
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  Speaker 3: that would go against the law. I can talk about
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  Speaker 3: your personal experience.
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  Speaker 2: We've had a response from the president sure spokesperson who says,
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  Speaker 2: since the former minister was part of every government since
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  Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, it's strange that he phrases it as though
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  Speaker 2: these were somehow different governments without him. As everyone remembers,
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  Speaker 2: we didn't hear any strong statements from him back then. Well,
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  Speaker 2: mister Federroff told me that he had done what he
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  Speaker 2: could to eradicate corruption from defense procurement and from the
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  Speaker 2: armed forces, but he did accept there was more to
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  Speaker 2: do and that Ukraine's war effort was still being hampered
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  Speaker 2: by the impact of bribes and corrupt officials. In terms
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  Speaker 2: of his future in the short term, he told me
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  Speaker 2: he will be going to the United States next week
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  Speaker 2: and that he still hopes to play a role in
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  Speaker 2: advancing technology to help Ukraine's war effort. He said he
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  Speaker 2: was hoping to meet Elon Musk with the aim to
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  Speaker 2: get the Starlink access extended into Russian airspace so that
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  Speaker 2: Ukraine can benefit from that in terms of hitting targets
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  Speaker 2: across Russia. Without Moscow being able to also use that system.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Dan Johnson in Kiev, she