Cabinet of Ministers without ministers or a reset? Who is to be appointed to replace the dismissed officials

Today, the Verkhovna Rada dismissed Minister of Strategic Industry Oleksandr Kamyshyn, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanishyna, Minister of Ecology Ruslan Strilets , and Minister of Justice Denys Malyuska. Instead, parliamentarians failed to dismiss Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories Iryna Vereshchuk, and Vitaliy Koval, who heads the State Property Fund. What is happening now and who can replace the dismissed ministers - read in the article by UNN.

Cabinet of Ministers without ministers

To date, 5 ministries of the current government have been headed by acting heads. Thus, the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food, the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, the Ministry of Veterans Affairs, and the Ministry of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure have had interim heads at one time or another. After today's vote, three more ministries were left without ministers, making a total of 8 out of 19. In addition, one of the three deputy prime ministerial positions became vacant.

Tonight, as confirmed by UNN, MP Fedir Venislavsky is expected to hold a meeting of the Servant of the People factionto discuss personnel decisions. The faction is likely to be attended by President Zelensky. Therefore, we can assume that, firstly, the dismissal of Kuleba and Vereshchuk is a matter of time and probably not a long one; and secondly, and this is supported by the words of both Venslavsky and the head of the faction, David Arakhamia, the government has candidates for ministerial portfolios.

Reset?

The head of the Servant of the People faction, David Arakhamia, announced a major government reset, as well as a faction meeting to discuss personnel issues.

“More than 50% of the CMU staff will be changed. Tomorrow (September 4 - ed.) we will have a day of dismissals, and the day after tomorrow (September 5 - ed.) a day of appointments. The final list will be determined at the faction meeting on 4.09,” Arakhamia said.

This means that tomorrow we may not only learn the names of new potential candidates for the vacant positions, but also see their official appointments. As of the time of writing, there was no information on the parliament's website about the submission of proposals for the appointment of new ministers, but certain names have long been mentioned on the sidelines.

To begin with, Olga Stefanishyna is likely to remain in the Cabinet. She is predicted to become the Minister of Justice. However, she will continue to be in charge of European integration. And there is an assumption that she will retain the position of Deputy Prime Minister, but with the prefix of Minister of Justice. It should be noted that in the European integration vector, such a symbiosis of positions may not be devoid of some logic, but the Ministry of Justice deals with a much wider range of issues than facilitating the adaptation of Ukrainian legislation to European law, and whether it is worth actually “abolishing” the specialized legal department is an open question.

As for Stefanishyna, she took up the post of Deputy Prime Minister in 2020. Prior to that, in 2017, Stefanishyna headed the Government Office for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of the Cabinet of Ministers' Secretariat. Later, she became Deputy Prime Minister. From 2010 to 2015, she worked at the Ministry of Justice, first as Deputy Director and later as Director of the Department of International Law/Department of European Integration.

Interestingly, in 2019, Stefanishyna ran for parliament on the list of Hroisman's Ukrainian Strategy (she did not make it to parliament). And now she is a member of the Servant of the People party.

Andriy Sybiga, the current first deputy head of the foreign ministry, may take over the post of foreign minister that has not yet been vacated by Dmytro Kuleba. Sibiga served for three years as deputy head of the Presidential Office, where he was in charge of foreign policy and strategic partnership development, and only in April 2024 he joined the Foreign Ministry. Prior to joining the Presidential Office, Sibiga was Ukraine's ambassador to Turkey, worked in the consular service, was deputy director of the M3C's Treaty and Legal Department, and Minister-Counselor at the Ukrainian Embassy in Poland.

Another person with diplomatic experience, Mykola Tochytskyi, is likely to head the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, which has been “decapitated” since Oleksandr Tkachenko's resignation in November 2023. Mykola Tochytskyi served as Deputy Foreign Minister from 2021 to 2024. He participated in negotiations with Russia in Belarus and Turkey.

In 2016-2021, the diplomat represented Ukraine to the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community on a part-time basis. In the same period, he served as Ukraine's ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg. And prior to that, he served for six years as Ukraine's permanent representative to the Council of Europe.

Another personnel shake-up that has so far met with resistance in the parliament is the dismissal of Vitaliy Koval from the position of head of the State Property Fund to be appointed Minister of Agrarian Policy, which is currently headed by acting Taras Vysotsky. Today, MPs failed to dismiss Koval. However, his resignation is likely to be submitted for reconsideration.

Prior to the SPFU, Koval was the head of Rivne-based RSA, later RMA, in 2019. Previously, he worked in the private sector, including co-founding companies in the agricultural, transportation and construction industries: Atlant-Trans LLC, InvesttradeService LLC, RGO-Logisticgroup LLC, BBB Montazh LLC, and Sanako LLC.

The Ministry of Communities and Territories Development of Ukraine is tentatively to be headed by Oleksiy Kuleba, who has been serving as Deputy Head of the Presidential Office since 2023. Prior to this, the official worked for two years in the Kyiv Regional State Administration, and for years - as the first deputy head of the Kyiv City State Administration for the exercise of self-government powers and the director of the Department of Urban Improvement of the executive body of the Kyiv City Council.

Matviy Bidnyi, who has been in charge of the Ministry of Youth and Sports since Gutzeit's resignation in 2023, may leave the acting status. Prior to this, he was deputy minister of youth and sports for 3 years, and in 2016-2020 he was director of the department of physical culture and non-Olympic sports.

During 2011-2016, Bidnyi held managerial positions in various companies, including SE Istfracht, Firmaist LLC, and Setra Law Firm LLC. In 2006-2007, he was an assistant to a well-known top official of the Yanukovych era, Andriy Portnov, who at that time had a mandate as a member of the Verkhovna Rada of the 5th convocation from the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc.

The Ministry of Veterans' Affairs is likely to be headed by Oleksandr Porkhun, a retired major, Hero of Ukraine and former commander of the 13th separate airmobile battalion of the 95th brigade.

The question remains who will take over as Minister of Strategic Industry and where Kamyshin will actually be appointed