Mykola Solskyi, Ukraine’s agriculture minister, and Deputy PM and Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov were dismissed by Ukraine’s parliament Thursday.
Solskyi had been in the cabinet of Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal since 2022 while Kubrakov was in government since 2021.
Ukraine’s anti-corruption office alleged in April that Solskyi had been involved in the illegal acquisition of 291 million hryvnias (€6.9 million) worth of state-owned land. Days later, the agriculture minister was arrested and subsequently released on a 75.7 million hryvnias bail.
Solskyi denied the allegations, but offered his resignation the following day. In Thursday’s vote, the parliament accepted his resignation.
Kubrakov — tasked with infrastructure and reconstruction of the war-torn country — was also dismissed by the legislature in the reshuffle, though according to a Facebook post following the vote, this came as a surprise.
“I am always ready for an open dialogue and a detailed report on the work of the Ministry in all areas of my responsibility,” Kubrakov wrote, adding that neither parliamentary head of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s ruling party nor PM Shmyhal had discussed his removal with him.
Zelenskyy predicted in March that more staff changes would be imminent. “We continue to reboot our state institutions,” he said then.
Bartosz Brzeziński contributed reporting.
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