🌍 Could Zelensky lose power?

Your Insider’s briefing:
— Could Zelensky lose power?
— Big spymaster news from the shadows
— China’s “so bad it’s good” film

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That’s how many days President Trump just delayed his 50% tariffs on Canada, “subject to the finalization of documents” around a tentative US-Canada trade deal. This latest extension expires the end of tomorrow (Friday).

YouTube says its users upload 20 million new videos every day. Most are probably garbage, but one from Tuesday (on a brand new channel to boot) is worth a look.

It features Ukraine’s ousted defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, making the most direct challenge to President Zelensky’s wartime presidency, arguing Ukraine’s “democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia”. Translation? He wants elections.

We’ve heard this debate before, but this time feels a little different. Why?

First, there’s Zelensky himself. Still popular, but the once-unassailable wartime leader now faces voter fatigue, insider scandals, and lingering questions around how long he can keep holding the system together without a fresh democratic mandate.

Second, there’s Fedorov himself.

He went full Doogie Howser back in 2019, becoming Ukraine’s youngest-ever minister (for digital transformation) at age 28! He was riding into power on the coattails of Zelensky, who had just won the presidency in a 73% landslide.

And by all accounts, young Fedorov did a great job, driving Ukraine near the top of global e-government rankings: think digital IDs and online tax.

Now fast forward to January this year, and Fedorov (about to turn 35) is rocking Clooney hair while dressing like Steve Jobs meets that Mads Mikkelsen Bond villain.

But frankly the guy can dress how he likes, because some of his early wartime digital bets (including Starlink and drones) are now paying big dividends.

So Zelensky appoints him defence minister, hoping to lean further into Ukraine’s tech advantages over Putin’s Soviet-era ‘meat waves’.

And it works, with Ukraine seizing more of the initiative. But the sheer speed and depth of reform irks Ukraine’s top generals, and relationships soon crumble.

So Zelensky fires Fedorov to keep the generals happy, but something surprising happens: protests erupt, as younger folks rally behind his image as a tech-savvy innovator shaking up an old, opaque system while also helping win the war.

Now Zelensky tries to calm the storm by firing his top general and inviting Fedorov back into the fold, but it’s too late. Fedorov ain’t interested. And now we know why…

His big ‘Address to Ukrainians’ argues:

But really, his core argument is it’s precisely by holding a wartime ballot that Ukraine can prove to Russia and the world that its democracy is worth defending.

There’s logic here, too: a wartime ballot would neutralise the “he’s a dictator” propaganda fanned unironically by Putin (and even amplified in the White House).

It’d also strengthen the hand of whoever gets the next five-year term, and perhaps disabuse Putin of the notion his own staggering losses can outlast the free world’s resolve.

But of course it’s not that simple.

First, there’s the law: Ukraine’s constitution forbids elections during martial law, which has been in place since Putin rolled tanks across the border in 2022.

Second, there’s the logistics: how do you count the million soldiers who are a little busy right now fighting for their lives and their families and their country?

Third, there’s the occupation: how do you count the four million or so folks now living in parts of Ukraine under Putinist rule? And would excluding them (while Putin runs sham elections there) be tantamount to accepting his control?

Fourth, there’s also the discord: an election pits Ukrainian against Ukrainian right when maybe unity is the country’s greatest asset (though there’s of course unity in the act of democracy).

And fifth, there’s the interference, whether Putin’s drones chasing random civilians in the streets, or his e-goons filling their feed with garbage.

It’d be hard, impractical, and dangerous. But you know what? It’s also unpopular.

Zelensky has laid low so far, no doubt to avoid giving his challenger oxygen. But also, poll after poll suggests most Ukrainians don’t actually want wartime elections.

Even one of the pro-Fedorov protest organisers opposes the idea!

So all that to say Zelensky isn’t about to lose power. But Fedorov has hit a nerve.

Our free world has long specialised in digesting Putin’s aggression through a curious kind of inversion…

Our free world has long specialised in digesting Putin’s aggression through a curious kind of inversion:

That being said, this latest flare-up — pressure from an ousted protégé, the quiet accumulation of political fatigue, allies silently fretting about legitimacy — is not pure propaganda, even if it might incidentally overlap with a Putinist narrative.

Rather, it hints at another guardrail for Ukraine. We already knew one: it’s just not realistic to hold elections under martial law with millions displaced and another million under arms while Putin keeps attacking. But this is another: maybe an indefinite wartime term for the democratically-elected Zelensky isn’t realistic either.

Is there some kind of third option somewhere there in the middle? Well… we’re arguably already seeing it in action, whether via the popular protests that forced Zelensky to rethink Fedorov’s firing, or the earlier popular protests that forced Zelensky to reinstate the independence of two key anti-corruption bodies.

Beyond that, through the fog of Putin’s war and Ukraine’s wartime politics, the best we can see is perhaps some kind of managed, legitimate, and constitutional transfer of power — carefully choreographed, with broad public and elite buy-in — to another credible unity government with next-gen leaders who can carry the fight (and an eventual peace) without old personalised baggage.

Either way, perhaps the free world will have to decide (with Ukraine) whether helping Ukraine defend itself also means helping Ukraine renew itself — in a way Putin can’t or won’t with Russia.

Sound even smarter:

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🕵️ Some spymaster news from the shadows…

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Move over The Room, because China has re-discovered the joy of “so bad it’s good”!

Meet Niu Lai (Here comes the Cow), an 86-minute animated film about a new-born calf wandering through a dream sequence. It was made over five years by exactly two people: a self-taught director and his mother. No marketing or trailer, with aggressively amateur animation that’s stiffer than a Soviet parade.

That’s why in its first ten days, the film earned a grand box office total of… $1,000.

But then the memes hit, the wonky 3D models went viral, and suddenly folks were buying tickets just to experience the car crash for themselves.

And lest you feel bad for this mom-son duo, they’re getting the last laugh: aside from the satisfaction of trying something new, they’ve now earned $4M (and counting)!

Wait, this is the wrong day for quizzes? Per our annual August schedule we’ll be off each Friday this month, so enjoy your earlier-than-expected quiz!

Tomorrow is the International Day of Remembrance and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism.