Veterans Affairs Minister Yuliia Laputina submits her resignation

Veterans Affairs Minister Yuliia Laputina submitted her resignation to the Ukrainian parliament, Chairman Ruslan Stefanchuk reported on Feb. 5.

The news comes a day after President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was planning a large-scale reset of Ukraine’s leadership amid rumors of the potential dismissal of Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

According to Stefanchuk, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, will consider Laputina’s resignation the next day.

In the resignation letter, Laputina didn’t specify a reason for such a decision.

The Ministry for Veterans Affairs was created in 2018, four years after Russia first invaded the Donbas and illegally annexed Crimea, to implement state policy on the social protection of war veterans.

In August last year, former Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said that around a million Ukrainians had become combat veterans since the Russian invasion of Donbas in 2014.

Laputina has served as the ministry’s head since December 2020. Previously, she had years-long experience in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

Rai News: Zelensky says leadership reset is necessary

Responding to a question about a rumored dismissal of Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi, President Zelensky said he had a serious reset in mind that was not about a single person, but about the general direction of the country’s leadership.

The Kyiv IndependentThe Kyiv Independent news desk