Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is about to reload his Cabinet of Ministers and seek the resignation of Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, a Kyiv Post parliamentary source said.
The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, has been told to be prepared to discuss and vote for a new cabinet on Tuesday, July 23, Kyiv Post's source said.
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MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak also posted information on his Telegram blog that the MPs will discuss “personnel issues and new appointments.”
The Kyiv Post source speculates it will be a whole new cabinet and not just a couple of new ministers.
The ministers who might stay on include the current Economics Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko, Finance Minister Serhii Marchenko and Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, the source said.
The news site LB.ua reported on Monday that when asked about his intentions towards Shmyhal at a press conference, Zelensky merely said: “We will talk about it later.”
He was more forthcoming when commenting on the cabinet as a whole, saying: “Could there be changes in the government? Probably, there could be. We are engaged in this process...”
The Ukrainska Pravda media outlet, citing sources close to the presidential administration suggested the changes would be “emotional” and that changes in government have been discussed in political circles for the last two months.
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Those discussions had not arrived at a conclusion, a second Kyiv Post source in government said. They only “brought multiple different versions of what might happen” and no result. “You don’t know what’s going to come since the uncertainty is always high.”
Shmyhal took over as prime minister in 2020 and was considered by many to be a “yes man” who displayed little in the way of independent initiative and always fully supported the president’s decisions.
Ukrainska Pravda stated that Zelensky is “tired” of Shmyhal and has begun ignoring him during meetings. It suggests that Shmyhal might be replaced by Svyrydenko, who, along with being the economics minister, is the First Deputy Prime Minister.
Minister of Justice Denys Maliuska is also rumored to be on his way out, but a Kyiv Post source within the Ministry remains skeptical – saying there have been rumors that he is “about to go” for the last six years.
At the end of June, Ukrainska Pravda reported that the president had criticized a number of his ministers for “not going close to the frontline cities.”
Zelensky also confirmed other possible ministerial changes without giving any specific details during a press conference on Monday, July 15.
He said that when he took office, he was often criticized for frequently changing ministers but now is criticized because they “work for a very long time.”
The first prime minister under Zelensky, Oleksii Honcharuk, served just over six months before resigning – though the International Monetary Fund stated it supported his economic policy.
Six ministers in the cabinet served from 2019 or 2020, the early period of Zelensky’s presidency. These are:
- Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov
- Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine Oleh Nemchinov
- Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba
- Minister of Healthcare of Ukraine, Viktor Liashko who had responsibility for managing the response to the COVID-19 pandemic
- Minister of Finance of Ukraine Serhii Marchenko
- Minister of Justice of Ukraine Denys Maliuska
Thirteen other ministers were replaced by Zelensky. And a fourteenth, former Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky, was killed, along with 14 members of his team, in a helicopter crash in January 2023. Monastyrsky was replaced as Minister of Internal Affairs by Ihor Klymenko.
Martial Law Restrictions
Zelensky technically cannot terminate Shmyhal under martial law.
Article 10 of Ukraine’s martial law – which is designed to sustain the key functions of the state under a threat of war or during wartime – prohibits terminating the powers of key state institutions including:
- The President’s Office
- Ukraine’s parliament (the Verkhovna Rada)
- The Cabinet of Ministers
- The National Bank
- Commissioner for Human Rights of the Verkhovna Rada
- Courts
- Prosecutor's offices
- Various intelligence agencies
Technically, these government officials, can not only not be terminated – but they can’t resign either.
However, with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine now in its third year, Ukrainian officials have been resigning nonetheless. The legality of these resignations are something that Kyiv will eventually have to deal with.
If Shmyhal does resign, then, according to Article 115 of Ukraine’s Constitution the whole Cabinet of Ministers must also resign.
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