Cabinet of Ministers without ministers or a reset? Who is to be appointed to replace the dismissed officials
Kyiv • UNN
The Verkhovna Rada has dismissed the ministers of strategic industry, European integration, environment and justice. New ministers are expected to be appointed and the government will be reset, according to the head of the Servant of the People faction.
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.