State grid boss ousted amid board-government rift
Editor's note: It is a developing story and is being updated.
The supervisory board of Ukraine’s state-owned energy grid operator Ukrenergo has fired the company's CEO Vitaly Zaichenko.
Inna Sovsun, a lawmaker from the Holos opposition party, confirmed the information in a comment for the Kyiv Independent on Sept. 26.
Oleksiy Brekht was appointed as Ukrenergo's acting CEO, Sovsun said. A source who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Kyiv Independent that Brekht had allegedly orchestrated Zaichenko's dismissal.
The dismissal comes amid a conflict between the government and Ukrenergo's supervisory board, including its foreign members. Zaichenko has been seen as close to the government, and the company's board has allegedly opposed him, according to the Kyiv Independent's sources.
Yaroslav Zheleznyak, another Holos lawmaker, wrote on Telegram that, by firing Zaichenko, Ukrenergo's supervisory board "has decided to put the Energy Ministry and the various corrupt officials there in their place." He did not elaborate.
"This is evidence that the struggle for control over Ukrenergo is ongoing, but I hope that the independence of corporate governance will be preserved," Sovsun told the Kyiv Independent. And I hope that the government, especially the President's Office, remembers the backlash they received from partners the last time they tried to take control of Ukrenergo by dismissing (Volodymyr) Kudrytskyi."
Kudrytskyi had been seen as independent from the government and had served as head of Ukrenergo since 2020.
He was dismissed in 2024 on the grounds of failing to protect Ukraine’s energy infrastructure amid Russian missile strikes, according to a statement from the company’s supervisory board chairman Daniel Dobbeni and board member Peder Andreasen.
Following his dismissal, however, the two said in a statement that the dismissal was “politically motivated” and had “no valid grounds.”
“From the first days of our work in the Supervisory Board of Ukrenergo, we felt political pressure and observed constant attempts to bypass the competition to appoint people whose professional qualities were questionable to the company's management board,” their statement said, which also announced their resignation in 2024.
