François Picard is pleased to welcome Daria Kaleniuk, Executive Director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center. Ukraine’s latest defense leadership shake-up, as interpreted by Kaleniuk, is not as a routine personnel change but rather a struggle over the future direction of wartime governance. Her analysis frames the dismissal of the reformist defense minister as a contest between competing institutional logics: one prioritising transparency, competitive procurement, civilian oversight, and data-driven reform, and another associated with entrenched networks, military hierarchy, and resistance to institutional change.