A protest against the dismissal of Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov gathered near the Ivan Franko Theater in central Kyiv on Thursday morning, July 16, according to Kyiv Post correspondent. Several thousand people assembled in the square outside the theater, demanding that President Volodymyr Zelensky reverse his decision and keep Fedorov in office. JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. The location carries strong symbolic significance. The Ivan Franko Theater is just steps from the Presidential Office and was the site of the mass protests in July 2025, when thousands of Ukrainians rallied after parliament voted to strip the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) of their independence. Those demonstrations became the largest anti-government protests since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. As rallies spread across the country, Zelensky reversed the decision within days and restored the agencies’ independence. This rally was organized through social media on Wednesday evening. Financial Times Kyiv correspondent Christopher Miller shared on X that organizers of last year’s NABU protests had called for a new demonstration ahead of parliament’s expected vote on Ukraine’s new Cabinet. “The organizers of last July’s major demonstration against Zelensky’s moves to undermine the independence of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau are calling on Ukrainians to gather at the same square at 9:01 a.m. on Thursday,” Miller wrote on X.