Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has announced a government reshuffle, with Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko confirming the imminent overhaul of the cabinet.
In a post on his Telegram channel on Sunday, Zelensky wrote that “personnel changes will begin in Ukraine to ensure the implementation of the updated political strategy.” He added that he had discussed upcoming changes to the cabinet with Sviridenko.
The incumbent prime minister has confirmed that she is stepping down to take on another role in the new government.
Sviridenko and her cabinet were sworn in last July, replacing that of Denis Shmigal.
The latest reshuffle comes amid a quickly deteriorating situation for Ukrainian forces on the front line, compounded by deepening economic problems and a major corruption scandal involving Zelensky’s inner circle. The $100 million graft scheme uncovered by Western-backed anti-corruption agencies last November at Ukraine’s state-run energy giant, Energoatom, allegedly involved businessman Timur Mindich, dubbed “Zelensky’s wallet” by Ukrainian media, as well as former Energy Minister German Galushchenko and former Deputy Prime Minister Aleksey Chernyshov.
The probe has led to the resignation of several high-ranking officials, including Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andrey Yermak.
Announcing the latest government reshuffle on Sunday, Zelensky clarified that high-priority foreign policy domains, including relations with the US, the EU, China, and Middle Eastern states, would be assigned to individual officials. The Ukrainian leader named securing weapons deliveries and fast-tracked EU membership as Kiev’s top priorities.
Ukrainian media has quoted MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak as claiming that Sviridenko could be appointed the country’s ambassador to the US, replacing Olga Stefanishina.
According to the media outlet Strana, Sergey Koretsky, chairman of the board at Naftogaz, the state-run oil and gas company, is being billed as the most likely successor to Sviridenko as prime minister. Zheleznyak speculated that Koretsky has a 99% chance of heading a new cabinet, with the decision all but finalized.
Koretsky is described by local media as a close associate of disgraced Ukrainian-Israeli businessman Timur Mindich, who fled to Israel amid the corruption scandal at the state-run energy giant, Energoatom.
Other contenders for the post of prime minister reportedly include Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov, former Prime Minister Denis Shmigal, and Kharkov mayor Igor Terekhov.
Local media, citing MP Zheleznyak, also claimed that personnel changes are imminent at helm of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) as well as the State Bureau of Investigation.
Commenting on the upcoming government reshuffle in Ukraine, Russian ambassador-at-large Rodion Miroshnik told TASS that Zelensky had taken the step “under pressure from external forces and it is dictated by the need to mop up the personnel legacy of his [former chief of staff] Yermak, who has come to symbolize corruption.”
The EU and NATO are reluctant to hand over new, bigger tranches of financial aid to those with ties to the former senior official, previously dubbed by some as Ukraine’s grey cardinal, according to the Russian diplomat.
Yermak was forced to resign last November after investigators from the Western-backed National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) raided his properties in connection with a probe into the kickback scheme at Energoatom.
Zelensky’s former chief of staff has since been charged in a separate money-laundering case.