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Rare wartime protests have erupted across Ukraine after President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed popular Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.

Some shit you should know before you dig in: Fedorov, 35, only took over in January, but in six months he became one of Ukraine’s most popular officials, credited with jolting the defense ministry back to life and transforming how the country fights. When he was Ukraine’s digital transformation minister, he championed Ukrainian drone startups, restricted Russian access to Starlink satellites, pushed midrange drone strikes that helped isolate Russian-occupied Crimea, and drove infantry and assault-troop pay to among the highest in the world. He also went after entrenched corruption in weapons procurement, which supporters say turned chunks of the political and military old guard against him. As for why Zelensky pulled the trigger, he tied it to a “systemic” conflict between Fedorov and armed forces chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi that played out at multiple levels, saying the two could only work together with him mediating and that “if the sides can’t resolve an issue, I will have to resolve it.”

What’s going on now: Hundreds of mostly young protesters rallied in Kyiv near the Ivan Franko National Theatre as well as in Lviv, Odesa, and Dnipro, chanting “Shame!” and carrying signs reading “The Russians are celebrating” and “Hands off Fedorov.” The demonstrations stretched into a second day, a rare sight during wartime, even as Russian missiles struck Kyiv overnight, killing two people.

Fedorov didn’t go quietly, kicking off the most open fracture inside Ukraine’s defense leadership since the war started. “Instead of figuring out how to defeat Russia asymmetrically, which is the commander-in-chief’s task, he figured out how to split the country,” Fedorov said of Syrskyi at a press conference, arguing that all his initiatives had been blocked and that “in this configuration, I personally don’t know how to win the war.”

Syrskyi responded on Telegram by thanking Fedorov for his work and wishing him continued success, saying he hoped Fedorov would stay part of “Ukraine’s team.”

The backlash has rippled through the military and Ukraine’s Western allies. A well-known drone commander, Pavlo Yelizarov, quit as the air force’s deputy commander in protest, calling the dismissal “a great evil for the country’s defense capability.”

One senior European official in Kyiv called the decision “a bit of a shocker,” warning it could damage relations with allies who saw Fedorov as committed to fighting corruption. Zelensky, for his part, acknowledged the protests, saying he “hears” what society is telling him.