Protesters who have taken to the streets this week in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, over a shake-up in military leadership have begun to focus their anger on one man in particular: Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the army’s top commander.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country in 2022, Ukrainian protesters had not denounced the military’s senior leadership. But on Friday, thousands of people in central Kyiv openly mocked General Syrskyi. Some held derogatory signs depicting slices of cheese, a play on the general’s name, which rhymes with the Ukrainian word for cheese. “Syrskyi, go away!” the crowd chanted.

On Saturday, a leader of the protests, Dmitry Kozyatinskyi, proposed a rally specifically to call for ousting General Syrskyi, who he said was “busy with politics instead of the front.”

This week’s wave of demonstrations began Thursday in support of Mykhailo Fedorov, the 35-year-old defense minister who was ousted by President Volodymyr Zelensky after Mr. Fedorov clashed with General Syrskyi. Mr. Fedorov, a champion of Ukraine’s successful drone warfare program, had accused the general of blocking the broader use of robots in the army, as well as other overhauls Mr. Fedorov had proposed.

Mr. Zelensky said he had not renominated Mr. Fedorov as defense minister in a cabinet shuffle because of the clash between Mr. Fedorov and the general staff over strategy in the war.

The protesters in Kyiv have continued to show support for the military as a whole. But the sight of crowds personally deriding General Syrskyi, who commanded pivotal, successful battles earlier in the war, suggested that Ukraine could be in uncharted territory. Historically, street demonstrations have played an outsize role in the nation’s politics.

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