A former combat medic and one of a leading figure in protests against the dismissal of Mykhailo Fedorov as defense minister, Dmytro Koziatynskyi, in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2025. (Dmytro Koziatynskyi / Instagram)A former combat medic and one of the lead figures in this week's protests against the dismissal of Mykhailo Fedorov as defense minister believes people "close to (Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr) Syrskyi" are "trying to intimidate me in order to stop the protests," he told the Kyiv Independent on July 17.Dmytro Koziatynskyi, who formerly served in the Da Vinci Wolves battalion, urged people to take to the streets on July 16 to "show the president that we are against constant reshuffles in the government and replacing effective ministers with convenient opportunists."President Volodymyr Zelensky's dismissal of Fedorov as defense minister on July 15 was met with outrage across Ukrainian society, largely due to a long list of his achievements during his productive, albeit short, six-month tenure.Much of the anger over Fedorov's dismissal has turned against Syrskyi since it emerged Zelensky's decision stemmed from tensions between the then-defense minister and commander-in-chief.Koziatynskyi joined approximately 1,000-2,000 people who gathered in Kyiv on the morning of July 16 to protest his dismissal, some of whom were soldiers and veterans who had hoped Fedorov would help resolve Ukraine's long-standing military issues, from mobilization to the severe lack of manpower.A protester holds a laptop displaying former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov during a demonstration against President Volodymyr Zelensky's decision to dismiss Fedorov in Kyiv, Ukraine, on July 16, 2026. (Roman Pilipey / AFP / Getty Images)Koziatynskyi’s former commander, Alina Mykhailova, claimed on July 17 that representatives of the Ukrainian military had contacted her for information about Koziatynskyi, who served as a combat medic under her command."'Repression’ in the army in 2026 is when you receive an urgent call from the Unmanned Systems Forces Command demanding to know which unit a man serves in because he is posting online about protests and urging people to join,” Mykhailova wrote in a post on social media."I really want civilians, veterans, and the media to understand what it really costs a serving military to support such actions," she added.Volunteer, paramedic, and Koziatynskyi’s former commander, Alina Mykhailova, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 7, 2026. (Yurii Stefanyak / Global Images Ukraine / Getty Images)Koziatynskyi, a well-known activist who was also a key figure behind the NABU protests in July 2025, told the Kyiv Independent he believed the incident was intimidation orchestrated against him because there is a "real chance that Syrskyi will finally be removed from army command.""I know that my military battalion command received requests about my whereabouts from the higher chain-of-command even though I have been a civilian for over a year already," Koziatynskyi said.