Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced that he will replace Ukraine’s prime minister and shake up his cabinet, in a sweeping government overhaul that he said was needed to deliver a new political strategy for the country.
Sergii Koretskyi, chief executive of Ukraine’s largest state-owned oil and gas company Naftogaz, is one of the leading candidates to replace Yulia Svyrydenko, according to the people familiar with the president’s plans.
“Personnel changes will begin in Ukraine to ensure the implementation of the updated political strategy,” Zelenskyy said in a statement posted on social media on Sunday.
The reshuffle comes less than a year since the last shake-up and is the third since the full-scale war with Russia broke out in February 2022. It comes as Ukraine intensifies its aerial strike campaign against Russia, bringing the Kremlin’s war closer to home than ever and heaping pressure on Moscow.
Zelenskyy posted a photo of himself with Koretskyi on Sunday and said the gas company chief “ensured that Ukraine’s national interests were upheld” while looking after an “extremely complex sector”.
“We discussed the steps our country needs to strengthen Ukraine’s resilience and deliver the expected results under our state’s updated political strategy,” he added.
Other prime ministerial candidates include former prime minister and current energy minister Denys Shmyhal and defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov, according to people familiar with the president’s thinking.
The Ukrainian president said that he had offered Svyrydenko — who had been prime minister for less than a year — “the opportunity to lead a new and important area of relations with a key partner”.
“I remain ready to serve the Ukrainian state and carry out every task aimed at strengthening Ukraine’s position, defending our national interests, and bringing a just peace closer,” Svyrydenko said in a statement after meeting Zelenskyy.
Two people familiar with the matter said it was likely that she would be tapped to be Kyiv’s ambassador in Washington, where she has developed close relationships with top members of US President Donald Trump’s cabinet while overseeing a minerals deal agreed between the countries.
Olha Stefanishyna, the current Ukrainian ambassador to the US, spoke to Zelenskyy in recent days and told him she was ready to step down from her post in Washington, according to the people familiar with the administration’s plans.
She faces an ongoing investigation into the purchase by her family of a Kyiv apartment for what Ukrainian investigators allege was a price well below the market value. She has denied the claims.
Zelenskyy said each key area of Ukraine’s foreign policy would now be “assigned to a specific person with substantial experience” responsible for delivering concrete results on strategic priorities.
“These changes require a renewal of the cabinet of ministers,” Zelenskyy said, adding that he expected parliament, which is controlled by his ruling Servant of the People party, to approve his new cabinet appointees in the coming weeks.
He named defence co-operation with the US and Europe, EU integration and relations with Poland and Hungary in particular as among the priorities. New appointees would also focus on strengthening Ukraine’s ties with China and the Middle East as well as engagement with major international organisations, he added.
The president also outlined a broad domestic agenda for the country, which is in its fifth year of all-out war with Russia, calling for stronger governance “in front-line and border regions, which come under Russian attack every day”, increased weapons and drone supplies for the military, accelerated preparations for winter, reforms of state-owned enterprises and greater focus on reconstruction agreements with international partners.
The announcement of another major government shake-up within a year of the last one took Kyiv’s political elite by surprise.
“It was quite unexpected,” said Oleksandr Merezhko, an MP in Zelenskyy’s party who serves as chair of the committee on foreign policy. He said a shake-up had long been rumoured but was expected to happen in autumn.
“Such a reshuffle of the government might be needed in the face of the new challenges related to the escalation of Russian attacks against our critical infrastructure, including [our] power grid . . . Besides, we need to strengthen our strategic relationship with the US, taking into consideration the lack of Patriot systems,” he added.
During a meeting with Zelenskyy on Wednesday at the Nato summit in Ankara, Trump said the US would grant Ukraine a licence to produce Patriot surface-to-air interceptor missiles, agreeing to one of Kyiv’s significant priorities.
Lockheed Martin’s Pac-3 interceptor missiles used with the Patriot air-defence systems in Ukraine’s arsenal are crucial to its ability to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles that have destroyed much of the country’s energy production capacity and are devastating Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.
Credit: Source link
