Ukraine lost its top diplomat this week. Dmytro Kuleba, foreign minister since March 2020, stepped down as part of a sweeping rebuild of the cabinet in Kyiv.
He was not alone. Several officials quit on Tuesday, and some of the government’s most important jobs were left empty. The strategic industries minister, who ran weapons production, was one of them. Kuleba was the most senior name on the list.
Who else went
Alexander Kamyshin left the strategic industries post. Justice minister Denys Maliuska and environmental protection minister Ruslan Strilets also submitted resignations, as did deputy prime ministers Olha Stefanishyna and Iryna Vereshchuk and Vitaliy Koval of the State Property Fund. A presidential decree removed Rostyslav Shurma, among the president’s most senior aides.
David Arakhamiya leads the ruling Servant of the People party in parliament. On Telegram he confirmed that a “major government reset” was coming, with over half the Cabinet of Ministers’ staff to be replaced. Thursday, he said, would be a “day of appointments”.
The president’s message, and the critics
President Volodymyr Zelensky had signalled it in his nightly video address on Tuesday. “For this, we must strengthen some areas of the government and changes in its make-up have been prepared. There will also be changes in the [president’s] office,” he said.
Inna Sovsun, an MP, told the BBC that Kuleba’s performance was not in question and that she knew of no rift between him and the president. Her reasoning was practical. With elections suspended under martial law, a reshuffle was “the best way to bring in new people, new ideas into the government which are very badly needed at the moment.”
Opposition MP Iryna Gerashchenko saw it differently. She called the outcome “a government without ministers” and an “intellectual and personnel crisis to which the authorities turn a blind eye,” and she urged a unity government.
Zelensky has remade his cabinet several times since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. At least five portfolios, among them infrastructure and agriculture, have sat vacant since ministers resigned or were dismissed earlier in the year. His first presidential term was due to finish in May 2024; martial law keeps him in office. Russian forces kept shelling Ukrainian cities while the reshuffle played out.
