At a crucial juncture of the war against Russia, President Volodymyr Zelensky has undertaken a major reshuffle of his government, insisting "new energy" in government was needed "today."
"These steps are only associated with strengthening our state in various sectors — international politics and diplomacy are no exception," he said on Sept. 4 during a press conference in Kyiv with Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris.
While lawmakers and political analysts close to the president told the Kyiv Independent the reshuffle is a way of bringing "new energy" to a tired government apparatus, those who are critical of Zelensky say it’s more about the President's Office, run by Andriy Yermak, willing to consolidate power even more.
Yaroslav Zhelezniak, an MP from the Holos party, told the Kyiv Independent that "it doesn't matter" who resigns and who replaces them.
"Everything will stay the same. There will be more people in the government loyal to Yermak,” he said. “They are all loyal anyway."
But Oleksandr Merezhko, a lawmaker and member of Zelensky's Servant of the People party, denied the reshuffle was about the President's Office tightening its grip on the government.
"The situation now is too serious, and to cope with the challenges, the government and the president need not only loyal, or rather reliable people, but also professional people,” he said.
"Loyalty is only one of the criteria, and the final word on these issues (replacements) belongs to the parliament," Merezhko told the Kyiv Independent, referring to the fact that the parliament needs to vote to accept the resignations and appoint the ministers’ replacements. It successfully passed several of the resignations on Sept. 4, while others failed to get enough votes.
Meanwhile, Oleksii Honcharenko, a lawmaker with the opposition European Solidarity party critical of Zelensky, believes that the reshuffle can’t bring positive changes because the government lacks general strategy and is “a department of the President’s Office.”
The attempt to mass replace the ministers isn’t entirely a surprise – such reshuffles have become relatively common in Ukrainian politics, and the announcement of resignations followed weeks of reports about the possible replacement of several ministers.
But the timing of the reshuffle has raised some eyebrows, coming amid an uptick in Russian missile strikes on cities across Ukraine in recent weeks, a worsening energy crisis, and a deteriorating situation on the front lines in the east.
Late on Sept. 4, David Arakhamia, a lawmaker and head of Zelensky’s Servant of the People faction in the parliament, announced the list of candidates for replacements.
Who's out, and who’s in?
Here are the outgoing ministers, and who will replace them:
Dmytro Kuleba, foreign minister. Early on Sept. 4, it was confirmed that Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba had submitted his resignation, a day after several other high-profile ministers were reported to have done the same. Kuleba has been in government since the 2019 parliament elections, last on record, serving first as deputy prime minister and later as foreign minister, a post he occupied for 4.5 years.
Kuleba's resignation was expected to be voted on by Ukraine's parliament on Sept. 4 but was postponed.
According to Arakhamia, Kuleba will be replaced by his top deputy, Andriy Sybiha. Sybiha is a career diplomat who served as Ukraine’s ambassador to Turkey in 2016-2019. In 2021, he joined Zelensky’s administration as the deputy of its head, Yermak, focusing on international relations. In April, he moved to the government and was made Kuleba’s deputy.
A source close to the President's Office told the Kyiv Independent that Kuleba "wanted out.”
Alexander Kamyshin, strategic industries minister. Other ministers that resigned include Strategic Industries Minister Alexander Kamyshin, who has been in post since March 2023, and has been tasked with bolstering Ukraine's domestic weapons production. The parliament approved his resignation on Sept. 4.
"Kamyshin will be closer to the president," the Kyiv Independent’s source said.
Later on, Arakhamia confirmed that Kamyshin will be moved to the president’s office, where he will “continue to work on the issues of weapons and infrastructure.”
Arakhamia said that the new minister for strategic industries will be Herman Smetanin, who has served as head of Ukraine’s state-owned defense production conglomerate Ukroboronprom since June 2023.
Denys Maliuska, justice minister. Justice Minister Denys Maliuska also submitted his resignation, thanking the president. Maliuska was the long-liver of the government, one of only two ministers who remained in place since the 2019 parliamentary elections and Zelensky’s first government. One of his memorable initiatives was the move to privatize Ukraine’s prisons.
The parliament passed his resignation on Sept. 4, and gave the outgoing minister a round of applause. Kamyshin and Maliuska are the only two outgoing ministers who made a traditional personal appearance in parliament when it was considering their resignation.
Maliuska will be replaced by Olha Stefanishyna, the current deputy prime minister, according to Arakhamia.
Iryna Vereshchuk, deputy prime minister and minister for reintegration of temporarily occupied territories. Iryna Vereshchuk is leaving the job she has been in since 2021. She played a big role in the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022, when she had daily briefings, announcing green corridors for evacuation from the recently occupied territories, such as the city of Mariupol.
The parliament didn’t gather enough votes to support Vereshchuk's resignation on Sept. 4, and will have to try to pass it again on the next day.
Like Kamyshin, Vereshchuk is moving to the President’s Office, where she will be deputy head of the office, with the same focus she had in the ministry – occupied territories.
As for Vereshchuk’s ministry, it will be reformed, according to Arakhamia. Its working title is the “Ministry of bringing Ukrainians home.”
Olha Stefanishyna, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration. Stefanishyna was appointed to the role in June 2020. Her resignation was backed by Ukraine's parliament on Sept. 4.
According to Arakhamia, Stefanishyna will hold a double job: she will be appointed justice minister and re-appointed as the deputy prime minister responsible for European integration.
Stefanishyna is a suspect in a criminal case connected to her previous stint in the justice ministry. According to the case, opened in 2014, ex-President Viktor Yanukovych's last serving Justice Minister Olena Lukash and several other ministry’s officials, including Stefanishyna, were charged with embezzling over Hr 2.5 million (around $60,600) of public funds. The money was allocated to adapt Ukraine’s legislation to the EU one.
Stefanishyna, who then headed one of the ministry’s departments, has denied wrongdoing. The case was filed to the High Anti-Corruption Court in 2023, which hasn’t yet reached a verdict.
Culture and information policy minister. The ministry has been without an official head for over a year, after Oleksandr Tkachenko was fired and deputy minister Rostyslav Karandeyev became the acting minister in July 2023. Mykola Tochytsky, a career diplomat, is set to be the new culture and information policy minister.
According to Arakhamia, Tochytsky’s “international experience” will help “strengthen the work against disinformation.”
Minister of agriculture. The agriculture ministry has been ruled by acting minister Taras Vysotsky since spring 2023. The previous minister, Mykola Solskyi, was fired after he was accused of illegally appropriating more than $7 million-worth of state land.
The new minister will be Vitaly Koval, according to Arakhamia.
Koval served as the governor and then head of the regional military administration of Rivne Oblast in 2019-2023. He spent one year as head of the State Property Fund. He filed his resignation on Sept. 3. The parliament failed the vote for Koval’s resignation on Sept. 4, and will take a second vote on it on Sept. 5.
Development of communities, territories and infrastructure minister. Oleksiy Kuleba will temporarily lead the ministry of development of communities, territories and infrastructure, a structure that united the former ministries of regional development and infrastructure. According to Arakhamia, the ministry would later be split into two, with Kuleba leading the one in charge of Ukraine’s regions.
Rumors of Kuleba becoming minister have been circulating for months, after Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov, under whom the two ministries were merged, was ousted in May.
Kuleba is currently serving as the deputy head of the president’s office, where he is tasked with regional development. Prior to being appointed into the president’s office in January 2023, Kuleba was the governor of Kyiv Oblast for nearly a year.
Ruslan Strilets, ecology minister. Ruslan Strilets was among the least known ministers in Ukraine despite serving in his post since 2021, first as acting minister and later taking on the role officially. Strilets will be replaced with Svitlana Hrynchuk, according to Arakhamia.
Hrynchuk is the sitting deputy energy minister, under the current minister Herman Halushchenko, who was able to keep his post in the reshuffle. Hrynchuk is a career government official, serving as a department head in the ecology ministry and later as an advisor to the finance minister and prime minister, where according to official records her tasks were tied to ecology and climate.
Sports and youth minister. Matviy Bidny, who has been acting minister, will be officially appointed to the job. Bidny became acting minister in November 2023, when then-Minister Vadym Gutzeit resigned to focus on his other role – President of Ukraine’s National Olympic Committee.
Bidny has been a career government official since 2016, appointed as the ministry’s deputy head in 2020, and surviving a handful of government changes.
Minister of veterans’ affairs. The ministry will be led by Natalia Kalmykova, serving as the deputy defense minister since September 2023. She will replace Oleksandr Porkhun, who served as the acting minister since February.
Kalmykova has previously been employed at the Come Back Alive, a high-profile non-government organization that raises funds for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. She later served as the head of the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation.
Prime minister stays put
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal will save his seat, for now. Rumors about Shmyhal’s upcoming resignation have circulated for months.
The most likely candidate to replace him was Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko. According to a source close to the President's Office, that is off the table, for now.
The Zelensky administration didn’t go for replacing Shmyhal in the end because firing a prime minister would trigger replacing the whole cabinet, which would violate the Martial Law Act, political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko told the Kyiv Independent.
They were reluctant to fire the whole cabinet because, if parliament had not approved dismissing the whole cabinet, it could have triggered a political crisis, he added.
"No bad blood, some were tired, some needed a shake up," the source at the President’s Office said of the reshuffle.
Still, the tone from some opposition lawmakers has ranged from weary resignation to outright fury.
In comments to the Kyiv Independent, MP Roman Lozynsky, representing Holos, an opposition party, said the power of Ukraine's parliament had been supplanted by the President's Office, describing the reshuffle as a "mess, chaos."
"The country has now created a vertical where the President's Office has a significant influence on decision-making," he said. "This also affects the work of the government because instead of reporting to the government and working in coordination with the parliament, reporting to the parliament, the government is in coordination with someone else.”
The Kyiv Independent reporters Andrea Januta, Oleg Sukhov and Natalia Yermak contributed reporting to this story.
