The big Kyiv political typhoon-in-a-teakettle news last week was the departure of Ukraine’s cool, Gen-Z Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, according to him, because he told President Volodymyr Zelensky to pick between him and General Oleksandr Syrsky and Zelensky picked that old stick-in-the-mud Boomer Syrsky. There has been much handwringing and pearls-clutching over this by the smartphone class. There were pro-Fedorov protests in several big Ukrainian cities.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Some Russian mil-bloggers certainly took Fedorov’s tenor as defense minister as a positive – as it is thought to be responsible for getting lots of drones to the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), and the perception is that the AFU is pretty effective because of all the drones it has. Meanwhile, in the actual war, last week saw some of the most powerful Ukrainian strikes on land and sea in years, and by some measures, by any military, ever, in any war. It is just astounding how Ukraine’s strikes against Russia aren’t front-page news from Portugal to Japan. It’s been going on for almost exactly a year, and it’s accelerating. The Russians obviously can’t stop it. Essay on the Fedorov brouhaha at bottom. As always, we start out with the fighting front. The front Enough information has come in to confirm the gradual Ukrainian liberation of territory in the Oleksandrivka/Hulyaipole sector. The Ukrainian mil-blogger corps seems pretty confident that over the past 45 days the Ukrainians have retaken about 120 square kilometers (46 square miles) and these six settlements: Ternove, Zaporizke, Novoheorhiivka, Vorone, Sichneve, and Maliivka. The point formation carrying out the attacks is the 425th Assault Infantry Regiment, my guess – by its 2nd and 3rd Battalions. There have been losses, not too heavy by that unit’s standards and excessive by standards of some other formations I know. There are other Ukrainians units in the area, but I hesitate to identify them.