Of the 360 lawmakers present on September 6, 2023, 338 voted to make Rustem Umerov Ukraine’s defense minister, according to senior lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak. Within hours Umerov was on social media promising “everything possible and impossible” for victory and the liberation of “every centimetre” of the country.
He was 41, a Crimean Tatar and a former businessman. He had been running the State Property Fund, and his résumé included the grain corridor talks, prisoner exchanges and, in spring 2022, a seat in Ukraine’s delegation in negotiations with Russia. Sergiy Leshchenko, an adviser in the presidential administration, told AFP it was the highest state post a Crimean Tatar had ever held.
A ministry in need of a clean start
Umerov replaced Oleksiy Reznikov, who resigned on September 4 after corruption scandals in the ministry. President Volodymyr Zelensky asked for “new approaches.” Prime Minister Denys Shmygal wanted the reforms already under way to continue and the new minister to get started quickly.
The next day Zelensky presented Umerov to the military leadership and was blunt about the clock. “They are greeted with applause, but sent off differently,” he said, warning against delay. He wanted bureaucratic red tape cut and resources pointed at protecting soldiers’ lives and health.
Umerov laid out five priorities, as Babel reported:
- putting the military first;
- making the ministry the main coordinating body for the Defense Forces;
- widening international partnerships, including unexpected ones;
- zero tolerance for corruption, plus digitalization;
- a stronger domestic defense industry.
He also spoke of returning to Ukraine “everything that is its own.”
The Bezrukova fight
The anti-corruption pledge got a hard test in January 2025. On January 24, Umerov said he would not renew the contract of Maryna Bezrukova, head of the Defense Procurement Agency, citing unsatisfactory results. Days earlier, the agency’s supervisory board had voted to extend her term. The Kyiv Independent reported that recent changes the ministry made to the agency’s charter let it override such board decisions.
Bezrukova’s record was the sticking point. She had pushed weapons purchases toward direct contracts with producers, cutting out middlemen who inflated prices. Over the previous year she signed more than 50 of them, worth approximately 306 billion hryvnia ($7.3 billion), according to the paper. “I’m not going to surrender,” she said, calling the move a “violation of legislation.”
Umerov’s side of it was sharper. He said that over six months the army had received “political games, contract leaks, information leaks” instead of ammunition delivered on time, UNN reported. Details that should stay confidential in wartime had been made public, he argued, while troops saw little benefit. He also asked for the dismissal of his deputy, Dmytro Klimenkov, and named Arsen Zhumadilov, who ran the State Rear Operator, to take over the agency.
Vitaliy Shabunin of the Anti-Corruption Action Center called the decision “clear sabotage” and demanded that Umerov himself be dismissed. The Kyiv Independent noted that the two officials, Umerov and Zhumadilov, reportedly have a close relationship.
Sources
- Ukraine parliament approves Rustem Umerov as new defence minister
- Rustem Umerov – priorities in office (Babel)
- Defense Minister Umerov dismisses top official who stood up to him (Kyiv Independent, Dominic Culverwell)
- Scandal with arms procurement: Umerov finds the guilty (UNN)
