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Rustem Umerov was commended for his exemplary management of Ukraine’s agency for state assets during his year in charge. As Ukraine’s incoming defence minister, the Muslim politician, activist and former businessman has an even bigger challenge: shoring up public confidence in a defence establishment tainted by graft allegations.
As the country gears up for a long war with Russia, activists, former officials and government figures said Umerov’s appointment — which is set to be ratified by parliament on Tuesday — was a deft move by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has stepped up efforts to root out corruption.
Vitaliy Shabunin, chair of Kyiv-based anti-graft watchdog AntAC, said Umerov’s appointment “will probably be the best decision of the president”.
Referring to Umerov’s record at the agency managing state assets, which was previously known as a hotbed of graft, Shabunin wrote on Facebook: “The best sign about a person’s actions in the future position is his results in the previous position.”
Shabunin and other anti-corruption activists had sharply criticised outgoing defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov’s handling of allegations of corrupt military procurement practices.
Local media claimed earlier this year that defence officials had sought to profit from inflated prices paid for food and uniforms for soldiers. Reznikov’s initial reaction to a scandal over overpriced eggs was to suggest those exposing the alleged criminality were undermining public confidence in the military.
There was no suggestion that Reznikov, a genial former lawyer who took over as defence minister in November 2021, was personally involved in corrupt practices. And no charges have been brought against any officials, although some were fired.
But Zelenskyy removed Reznikov from his post on Sunday night, saying the ministry needed “new approaches and other formats of interaction with both the military and society at large”.
Umerov, 41, is the son of Crimean Tatars who were deported to Uzbekistan under Soviet rule but returned to Crimea just before Ukraine became independent. He was a successful businessman and Tatar rights activist before being elected to parliament in 2019 for Holos, a reformist opposition party. He became part of Zelenskyy’s inner circle and was entrusted to take part in abortive peace negotiations with Russian officials following Moscow’s full-scale invasion.
People familiar with Umerov said he had established close ties with the leadership in Turkey as well as with Middle Eastern countries and some western allies.
Zelenskyy’s team hopes Umerov will use his skills to improve management at the defence ministry and boost transparency of procurements — even if they are sceptical about the graft claims.
Serhiy Leshchenko, an adviser to Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak, said a change of leadership was needed to “improve communication of sensitive topics within society” and reboot “trust”.
On top of corruption allegations, the ministry has been dogged by bad press around the process of mobilising troops into the army. Zelenskyy recently fired scores of army recruitment chiefs following reports of some people paying bribes in order to avoid conscription. Other reports highlighted incidents of excessive force being used to enlist soldiers.
Leshchenko also pointed to Umerov’s Crimean Tatar ethnicity as a “no-compromise message” to Russia about Kyiv’s intentions to liberate the peninsula along with south-eastern regions also occupied that together account for about 18 per cent of state territory.
The shake-up at the ministry comes at a critical time. Modest gains in a long-awaited summer counteroffensive have dented western confidence in Ukraine’s military prospects — although Ukrainian officials have recently claimed a break through Russia’s first of several defensive lines in the south of the country.
Ukraine’s army general staff operates independently co-ordinating military strategy and combat operations under Zelenskyy’s overall command. But the defence ministry plays a key role in procuring weapons and mobilising troops.
Timofiy Mylovanov, a former economy minister, said on social media platform X that as well as restoring public confidence in defence procurement, Umerov needed to speed up the adoption of new military technologies by state defence production bodies.
Umerov is likely to find that pressuring western allies into delivering more weaponry remains a key part of his new role.
Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defence minister and now a government adviser on security, paid tribute to Reznikov for rallying international support for Ukraine during its “biggest crisis”.
“After the president he was the main guy who made it happen,” Zagorodnyuk said.
In his resignation letter on Monday, Reznikov, who will reportedly become Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, took credit for his part in obtaining $100bn in foreign military assistance and weaponry. MPs accepted his resignation on Tuesday.
Only a few months before Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s pleas for Stinger anti-aircraft missiles had been rebuffed, he noted. “We’ve come a long way,” Reznikov wrote.
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