President Volodymyr Zelensky pushed ahead with his sweeping overhaul of the senior government ranks as the head of Ukraine’s ruling party released a slate of nine candidates for top cabinet positions Wednesday evening.
If Parliament approves the new candidates, which is expected, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, who resigned earlier Wednesday, will be replaced by Andrii Sybiha, the first deputy foreign minister, according to the party head, David Arakhamia.
The political upheaval came after a series of blistering Russian missile attacks and battlefield gains in recent weeks and before a vital trip by Mr. Zelensky to Washington, where he plans to reveal a “victory plan” for the war.
Mr. Zelensky said Wednesday that he was acting to bring a “new energy” to state institutions, hours after rescue workers pulled bodies from the wreckage of an overnight missile attack that killed seven people in the historic city center of Lviv, near the Polish border.
In one heart-wrenching scene, Yaroslav Bazylevych stood on the ancient cobblestone streets, covered in dust and blood, being stitched up by paramedics as rescue workers pulled the lifeless bodies of his wife and three daughters from the ruins.
“I don’t know what words to use to support the father,” the mayor of Lviv, Andriy Sadovyi, said in a statement.
More than a half dozen senior officials were asked to tender their resignations to the country’s Parliament this week, though many had been expected to remain in the administration with new portfolios.
Among the more notable changes, Alexander Kamyshin, the charismatic minister for domestic arms production, is slated to join the Presidential Office, where he “will continue to deal with weapons and infrastructure issues,” Mr. Arakhamia said.
Olha Stefanishyna, formerly Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, was expected to lead the Justice Ministry, a strong signal about the government’s commitment to battling corruption, analysts said.
But analysts also said the reshuffling did not appear to signal fundamental shifts in domestic or foreign policy.
While the changes had been under consideration since February, said Mykhailo Minakov, a senior adviser on Ukraine for the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, Mr. Zelensky acted now because “Ukraine has to prepare for a new phase of the war and a new phase of diplomacy.”
Mr. Zelensky himself did not offer any explanation for the activity, beyond saying that he expected that “certain areas of our foreign and domestic policies will have a slightly different emphasis.”
The Ukrainian leader said Russian strikes on civilian infrastructure, including a campaign to disable the country’s energy grid, underscored the need for “more interaction between the central authorities and the communities” in preparation for what promises to be a grueling winter.
“Autumn will be extremely important for Ukraine,” Mr. Zelensky said in an address to the nation before the overhaul on Tuesday night. “Our state institutions must be set up in such a way that Ukraine will achieve all the results we need — for all of us.”
At the top of Mr. Zelensky’s priorities is American support for what he has described as his nation’s plan for victory.
Mr. Zelensky said last week that he planned to share the plan with President Biden when he travels to the United States at the end of the month. He said he would also pass the plan along to the presidential candidates, Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald J. Trump.
Given the intricacies of the current diplomatic moment, the decision to replace the foreign minister, Mr. Kuleba, surprised many analysts. He has played a central role in two major goals regarding the United States: pressing the Biden administration to lift restrictions on the use of western weapons to hit deep inside Russia, and ensuring that Ukraine does not alienate either candidate for U.S. president.
Some critics condemned the changes in the government as rash and ill-advised during a difficult moment in the war and as the continuation of a trend to concentrate power in Mr. Zelensky’s hands, especially if he installs loyalists reluctant to challenge him or the powerful head of the president’s office, Andriy Yermak.
The shake-up could bring “an increase of Yermak’s influence,” said Yevhan Mahda, a Ukrainian political analyst, who added that increased authority in the president’s office could come at the expense of the Parliament and cabinet ministers.
Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, the head of a parliamentary committee on integrating Ukraine into the European Union, said that key government positions had remained vacant for months, and she warned that the moves this week undermined checks and balances within the government.
“The society, which has no time for this now, is being thrown random people into key government positions, accustomed to the absence of people in these positions, to the absence of subjectivity of both the legislative and executive branches, strategy and legality,” she said.
Mr. Minakov of the Wilson Center said he spoke to several lawmakers on Wednesday morning who had no knowledge of the reshuffling until they read about it in the news. That underscored the diminished role Parliament has played since the outbreak of the full-scale war.
“By law, the cabinet and Parliament are as important as the president, but in practice we see all the decisions are made by the president’s office,” Mr. Minakov said.
But others were more charitable. “This is Zelensky’s style of work,” said Volodymyr Fesenko, a Ukrainian political analyst. “When he sees stagnation in the work, he changes people,” he added. “He thinks that new people will be more motivated and will bring new ideas.”
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