Ousted Ukraine defence minister calls for wartime elections

Ukrainian lawmakers appointed Yevhenii Khmara as the country’s new defence minister on Wednesday, hours after his predecessor, Mykhailo Fedorov, called for elections during wartime, delivering a fresh political challenge to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Khmara, a former senior special forces operative who briefly served as acting head of Ukraine’s SBU security service, takes charge of the defence ministry amid political turmoil following Fedorov’s removal in July. Fedorov’s dismissal prompted thousands of people to protest in Kyiv in rare wartime demonstrations, with critics arguing that the decision was poorly communicated at a critical stage of the war with Russia. In a statement on Tuesday, Fedorov said Ukr