Ever since the probability of his victory in Ukraine’s presidential elections became obvious, comedic actor Volodymyr Zelenskiy — now the president-elect — has avoided revealing any future nominations for his administration.
So far, we have only seen a team of “experts and advisers” on basic policy areas ranging from security to healthcare and finances. No names of future appointees have been disclosed.
Zelenskiy has particularly avoided naming appointees to top national posts which are appointed by the president — namely, the defense minister, the chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces, the SBU security service chief, and the Prosecutor General, as well as foreign affairs minister and the head of the Presidential Administration.
Amid an ongoing military and diplomatic standoff with Russia and broad public demands to combat corruption within the country, these appointments are undoubtedly at the top of Zelenskiy’s to-do list.
Judging by the president-elect’s rare and patchy public statements, his campaign is currently holding negotiations with potential candidates and the names will be revealed immediately after Zelenskiy’s inauguration. The inauguration wasn’t scheduled yet, but it has to happen no later than June 3.
During a short briefing held immediately after the first exit polls predicted his overwhelming victory on April 21, a journalist asked Zelenskiy about his candidates for the General Staff. The comedian-turned-president claimed to have struck arrangements with “very serious guys, with authority in the army, the serving generals.”
However, he declined to reveal any details, citing obligations to refrain from revealing their identities until the end of the current president’s administration.
While the new team is being formed behind closed doors, the Kyiv Post has polled experts to find out their recommendations for these key appointments.
Defense minister
Since late 2018, defense ministers in Ukraine are civilian appointees, in accordance with new legislation on national security approved as part of the country’s program to achieve full compliance with NATO benchmarks by late 2020.
Shortly before the runoff election, Zelenskiy presented his advisor for defense issues: Ivan Aparshyn, a retired army colonel and Defense Ministry official in 2005-2014. During the first round of the election, Aparshyn was part of candidate Anatoliy Grytsenko’s team. Grytsenko, a former defense minister himself, planned to nominate Aparshyn defense minister in case of victory.
Mykhailo Samus, deputy director with the Center for Army, Conversion, and Rearmament Studies, a Kyiv-based think tank, said Aparshyn was indeed a potentially good candidate to head the Defense Ministry.
The Grytsenko team, including Aparshyn, proposed a rather progressive plan for defense and security development, the expert told the Kyiv Post.
“For instance, Grytsenko called upon the abolishment of military conscription, the development of a fully contract army, the creation of a territorial defense system as a voluntary component,” Samus said.
“These are rather progressive views. We’ll see if they will be put into practice,” he added. “It should be noted that (such a program) will require a total transformation of the defense and security sector and a shift away from repressive post-Soviet approaches to much more progressive models of (countries like) Israel or Switzerland.”
Other than that, on April 22, Aparshyn also claimed that the Zelenskiy team aimed to make the country’s defense spending fully transparent and to reform the state-run military production giant UkrOboronProm by stripping of its authority to define defense production policies.
Taras Chmut, a former marine and chief editor of the Ukrainian Military Portal news outlet, proposed keeping current Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak in office. However, he reiterated that the ministry would work more efficiently with reforms at UkrOboronProm and improved civilian oversight.
Chmut also proposed the candidacy of Ihor Kabanenko, a retired admiral and current deputy defense minister.
During the rule of ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, “Kabanenko was the first deputy chief of General Staff, and was in opposition to Yanukovych and to Russia,” he said.
“As far back as at that time, he was actively pursuing a policy of resistance towards Russia, including in Crimea and Sevastopol — and this is why he was eventually dismissed from military service (in 2013).”
Since Kabanenko is now a civilian official, he can be a good option for Defense Ministry chief, Chmut said.
Oleh Zhdanov, a former General Staff officer with the rank of colonel, suggested not concentrating on certain names, but rather appointing a new minister — essentially, a managerial post in government — through an open competition of civilian administrators and managers.
It will not be a problem if such a defense minister has no experience in military affairs, he believes.
“Numerous aides of the new defense minister will be advising him or her in certain military-connected subtle details,” Zhdanov told the Kyiv Post.
Ihor Kabanenko (Ukraine Crisis Media Center)
General Staff chief
When it comes to appointing a top commanding officer for the Armed Forces, Zelenskiy has many good options: Since 2014, Russia’s war in Donbas has highlighted many decent servicemen, and, moreover, produced new, combat-hardened senior officers and generals.
Oleh Zhdanov recommends assigning the General Staff to Major General Serhiy Korniychuk, currently deputy chief inspecting officer at the Defense Ministry.
“I know him personally since the days we served together,” the expert said.
“He’s an artillery gunner by education, and, in his career, he has risen through all levels to commanding a brigade and then an army corps in Rivne. On each of his posts, he has shown himself to be a brilliant organizer and a very competent specialist.”
“And he is a very forthright and simple man. Despite his high-ranking post, he’s living in a dormitory in Kyiv. He has a flat in Ternopil, and his family comes to visit him in (Kyiv), so he has neither villas nor offshore bank accounts.”
Other than that, Korniychuk successfully graduated from the General Staff Academy in order to master top-level military commanding.
“His experience and education absolutely qualify him for this position,” Zhdanov said.
In Ukrainian military circles, there is a name that has been circulating for years as a potential successor to current Chief of Staff Victor Muzhenko: Lieutenant General Mykhailo Zabrodskiy, the leader of Ukraine’s airborne branch and top commander in Donbas in 2017-2018.
Zabrodskiy, an officer with sizable reputation, can boast an impressive combat record in the hottest battles against Russian-backed forces in Donbas. He gained nationwide iconic status after leading a 470-kilometer-long sortie behind enemy lines for two weeks, which saved nearly 3,000 Ukrainian troops and 250 vehicles from Russian encirclement.
Dubbed “The Zabrodskiy Raid,” this operation brought the commander the title of Hero of Ukraine in August 2014.
Lieutenant General Mykhailo Zabrodskiy (Ministry of Defense of Ukraine)
Other than that, Zabrodkiy’s 95th Airborne Brigade, as well as the entire airborne branch under his leadership, has been repeatedly called one the most elite and combat potent formations of Ukraine’s Armed Forces.
Military expert Samus says he would strongly support the candidacy of Zabrodskiy.
“This would be a good option,” he said. “It must be a person with combat experience and open to innovations, free of the conservative Soviet-style way of thinking we haven’t been able to get rid of for 30 years.
“Zabrodskiy’s bright moments at war are the result of his open-mindedness to Western approaches, to non-conventional thinking.”
Taras Chmut would also endorse this nomination.
“He has done very much for the Air-Assault Forces,” he said. “He will indeed leave a mark on Ukrainian military history as one of the best commanders. Under him, Ukraine’s airborne are demonstrating probably the best progress in the whole military, even better than the Special Operations Forces.”
Apart from Zabrodskiy, Chmut would also suggest the candidacies several other commanders, who, have proved their efficiency at war: navy commander Admiral Ihor Voronchenko and top commander of the Joint Forces Operation in Donbas, Lieutenant General Serhiy Nayev.
Commander Lieutenant General Serhiy Nayev during large-scale military maneuvers near the town of Urzuf on Oct. 9, 2018. (Volodymyr Petrov)
Prosecutor general
Dmytro Bulakh, head of the Kharkiv Anti-Corruption Center; Artem Romanyukov, head of Dnipro’s Civic Control watchdog; and Sergei Hadzhynov, a member of the AutoMaidan anti-corruption group, all proposed the candidacy of David Sakvarelidze for the job of the prosecutor general.
Sakvarelidze took part in anti-corruption reforms as deputy prosecutor general in Georgia in 2008-2012 and as deputy prosecutor general in Ukraine in 2015-2016.
Vitaly Ustymenko, head of AutoMaidan’s Odesa branch, said that Vitaly Tytych, the ex-coordinator of the Public Integrity Council, and Roman Maselko, a member of the council, could make good prosecutor generals too. Both are lawyers for the families of slain EuroMaidan protesters.
Ustymenko also proposed the candidacy of Sergii Gorbatyuk, a top investigator in charge of EuroMaidan investigations at the Prosecutor General’s Office.
Meanwhile, Kateryna Butko from AutoMaidan suggested Laura Kovesi, ex-head of Romania’s National Anti-Corruption Directorate and the top candidate for the job of the European Union’s top prosecutor. She also recommended Martha Boersch, a former U.S. federal prosecutor who successfully prosecuted ex-Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko on corruption charges. Butko admitted, however, that they were unlikely to accept the job.
Other candidacies proposed by civic activists include National Anti-Corruption Bureau investigators and anti-corruption prosecutors Andriy Perov and Roman Symkiv, who have become famous for their role in high-profile graft cases pursued by the bureau.
Yegor Sobolev, ex-chair of parliament’s anti-corruption committee, and Oleksandr Lemenov, an anti-corruption expert at the Reanimation Package of Reforms, argued that the prosecutor general should not be a political appointee. Instead, there must be a transparent and fair competition for the post, they said.
SBU chief
Several civic activists interviewed by the Kyiv Post proposed Viktor Trepak as the new head of the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU. He was the service’s deputy chief and headed its anti-corruption unit in 2015-2016.
Trepak was also one of the officials behind the arrest of top prosecutors Oleksandr Korniyets and Volodymyr Shapakin on bribery charges in 2015. He resigned then, saying he could no longer work because then-Prosecutor Viktor Shokin, a loyalist of President Petro Poroshenko, was blocking the bribery case.
In 2016, Trepak submitted the alleged black ledger of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions to the NABU. He says it proves a massive bribery scheme worth $2 billion.
Foreign minister
Romanyukov, Butko and Hadzhynov proposed Svitlana Zalishchuk, a lawmaker focusing on foreign policy issues, as a potential foreign minister.
Butko said that Hanna Hopko, another independent lawmaker involved in efforts to fight Russian aggression internationally, would be a good candidate.
Lemenov argued that Oleksandr Danylyuk, a former finance minister and a member of Zelenskiy’s team, could be appropriate for the job, although he would not fit the profile of a career diplomat. However, Danylyuk said earlier he was “not interested” in the foreign minister post.
Sobolev suggested Andriy Shevchenko, Ukraine’s ambassador to Canada. He added that other strong ambassadors could also be chosen for foreign minister.
Bulakh proposed Bogdan Yaremenko, a foreign policy expert and ex-diplomat, and former Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ogryzko.
