I didn't follow the story so much but the fact that the reason for Fedorov's dismissal does not seem to be disclosed makes it difficult to have a strong opinion. I have no clue what to think. What are people thinking over there making it worth big protests?
He came in with a very popular agenda to reform the military and it ruffled too many feathers in the General Staff. People want him back so he can complete what he started.
Fedorov is a tech bro who oversaw implementation of hypercentralized, Russia/China-like e-ID systems, promises to put AI into everything (or rather, first blockchain, and now AI), is notorious for looking down on cybersecurity, and is sleazy enough to be on good terms with Elon Musk. For some reason this makes him quite popular with young people. And his opponent is very unpopular despite there not being much difference in their (lack of) explicit views, similar to how Poroshenko and Zelenskyi were pretty much the same right-wing liberals ideologically but had different vibes. Fedorov is very good at marketing, he was the person trusted with running SMM bots in Zelenskyi's presidential campaign.
I think these protests are a way to have young people let off steam in a socially acceptable method. Lots of Ukrainians are upset with extremely low wages, decline of medicine, education, transport, increasing taxes on working people, mass layoffs in the public sector, increasing workloads, growing police and surveillance apparatus, and torture in the parts of the military where undesirables/"ukhyliants" end up. But grassroots protests, and in some places spontaneous riots, for these reasons are either ignored or ridiculed by centre-right media influencers; Facebook/Instagram shadowban or literally ban organizers inviting people to go there, and messages about them don't reach Western media. Only centrist (pro-privatization, pro-"meritocracy" etc) and right-wing (anti-immigration) messages are allowed to reach wide audiences.
3 Comments
k_rol@lemmy.ca · 13 pts · 5d
I didn't follow the story so much but the fact that the reason for Fedorov's dismissal does not seem to be disclosed makes it difficult to have a strong opinion. I have no clue what to think. What are people thinking over there making it worth big protests?
LaFinlandia@sopuli.xyz · 13 pts · 4d
He came in with a very popular agenda to reform the military and it ruffled too many feathers in the General Staff. People want him back so he can complete what he started.
nykula@piefed.social · 1 pts · 4d
Fedorov is a tech bro who oversaw implementation of hypercentralized, Russia/China-like e-ID systems, promises to put AI into everything (or rather, first blockchain, and now AI), is notorious for looking down on cybersecurity, and is sleazy enough to be on good terms with Elon Musk. For some reason this makes him quite popular with young people. And his opponent is very unpopular despite there not being much difference in their (lack of) explicit views, similar to how Poroshenko and Zelenskyi were pretty much the same right-wing liberals ideologically but had different vibes. Fedorov is very good at marketing, he was the person trusted with running SMM bots in Zelenskyi's presidential campaign.
I think these protests are a way to have young people let off steam in a socially acceptable method. Lots of Ukrainians are upset with extremely low wages, decline of medicine, education, transport, increasing taxes on working people, mass layoffs in the public sector, increasing workloads, growing police and surveillance apparatus, and torture in the parts of the military where undesirables/"ukhyliants" end up. But grassroots protests, and in some places spontaneous riots, for these reasons are either ignored or ridiculed by centre-right media influencers; Facebook/Instagram shadowban or literally ban organizers inviting people to go there, and messages about them don't reach Western media. Only centrist (pro-privatization, pro-"meritocracy" etc) and right-wing (anti-immigration) messages are allowed to reach wide audiences.