In his zealous efforts to popularize drone warfare, Ukraine’s young defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, also gained widespread popularity himself.

And that, political analysts and opposition politicians said, may have helped bring about his downfall this week, as President Volodymyr Zelensky sided against him in a titanic clash with the country’s top military commander.

Mr. Zelensky’s dismissal of Mr. Fedorov, 35, sidelined a potential political rival who had seized the spotlight. The timing of his ouster is awkward, just as drone warfare has helped tilt the scales in Ukraine’s favor. The move also indicates Mr. Zelensky’s misgivings about Mr. Fedorov’s vision of drones as nearly the entirety of the country’s future in fighting the war.

The firing of Mr. Fedorov came after he had blocked purchases of artillery ammunition in favor of drones. The commander of Ukraine’s military, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, had insisted that the ammunition was still needed in the brutal trench fighting in the country’s east.

“The popularity of drones is the problem” that led to Mr. Fedorov’s ousting, said Mykola Davydiuk, a member of Parliament in the opposition Holos party.

Mr. Fedorov had become “a problem and a danger” for Mr. Zelensky, Mr. Davydiuk said, by championing a purely technological overhaul of Ukraine’s military that was widely popular but was opposed by the top general actually fighting the war.

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