Zelensky justifies Kuleba’s dismissal by his lack of enthusiasm in convincing the West of the need for him to supply more weapons | El Diario Vasco

On Wednesday, Ukraine’s unicameral parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, ended its session with the dismissal of only four ministers, but the dismissal of Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, the most important change in this reshuffle, was not even discussed. But on Thursday, the chamber resumed its work and voted definitively in favour of dismissing Kuleba.

President Volodymyr Zelensky had to meet on Wednesday evening with the members of the parliamentary bloc, called “Servant of the People” to push through the changes in the Executive that he considers essential. During that meeting, David Arajamía, the spokesman for the Servant of the People faction, which holds the absolute majority in the Chamber, detailed in his Telegram account that “President Zelensky accompanied us and the different parliamentary groups developed a general plan for the necessary rotation of personnel to strengthen the State.”

Arajamia expressed the hope that all the new ministers, whose names, he said, “were presented to the head of state”, would be appointed by Thursday. However, everything indicates that there is strong wrangling even within the majority government. Zelensky again stressed to the deputies that “the government needs to be given a new impetus” and, for the first time, explained that Kuleba’s dismissal was due to his lack of enthusiasm in convincing the West of the need to supply more weapons to fight Russia.

The head of the ruling parliamentary group said that Kuleba’s deputy, Andrii Sibiga, former Ukrainian ambassador to Turkey, “number two” in the Office of the President in 2021 and deputy foreign minister since last April, has been proposed as his replacement as head of Foreign Affairs. Meanwhile, the candidate for the Infrastructure and Regional Policy portfolio is the current deputy head of the Office of the President, Alexii Kuleba. The deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, Olga Stefanishina, has been proposed for the post of Minister of Justice.

The post of Deputy Minister of Defence Natalia Kalmykova will be appointed to the post of Minister of War Veterans Affairs, and Nikola Tochitsky will be appointed to the post of Minister of Culture and Information. In this regard, Arajamia noted that “at this stage we need to strengthen the fight against disinformation and for this task we need a candidate with international experience.”

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for the Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories Irina Vereshuk is expected to be transferred to the Presidential Office, where she will work on social policy. Agriculture may be taken over by Vitali Koval, who was currently the manager of the State Asset Fund, Sport by Matvey Bednii, and Ecology by the current Deputy Energy Minister Svetlana Grinchuk. “We are discussing the creation of a new institution in the government with the provisional name of the Ministry for the Return of Ukrainians, and we are discussing who could lead it,” the parliamentary speaker added.

But so far, the only four ministers who have been officially dismissed are Alexandra Kamishina, who held the Ministry of Industry; Stefanishina, who has now been offered the Ministry of Justice; Ruslan Strelets, who is leaving the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources; and Denis Maliuska, who has been dismissed as Minister of Justice.