New energy or reshuffling: Why are personnel rotations in power happening now, and what will they change?
Since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, the country has witnessed the largest wave of ministerial dismissals. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy explains this by saying that government positions require “new energy.”
However, many of the successors are current employees of the President’s Office. So, will this “energy” really be all that new? And who exactly will take on the ministerial roles after the reshuffling? Here’s the story.
Radio Free Europe investigates.
Who has left, and who has simply moved to a different chair?
New heads of ministries:
Why now?
In June 2024, Verkhovna Rada Chairman Ruslan Stefanchuk announced upcoming personnel changes in the government.
“Our task is to fill the government,” he said on June 29 during a National Telethon broadcast. However, the changes did not occur at that time, despite the fact that several ministries had been operating without confirmed leaders for a long time, including the Ministries of Culture, Youth and Sports, Agrarian Policy, Infrastructure, Veterans Affairs, and Regional Development.
At that time, reports from the publication “Ukrainska Pravda” also mentioned that the president wanted to replace the head of the government, Denys Shmyhal. However, this did not happen either.
Instead, a few months later, in September, several ministers, as listed above, submitted their resignation letters, and they were effectively considered by the parliament simultaneously.
Radio Free Europe, along with colleagues from other publications, asked the president why these changes are occurring now and what changes he expects from the ministries with new leaders.
“For these 4.5-5 years, someone was a minister. Today we need new energy, and these steps are connected only with strengthening our state in various directions,” President Volodymyr Zelensky briefly responded to the question on September 4.
Thus, publicly, the president cited the desire to bring in “new energy” and the fact that key government managers had become fatigued over such a period (4.5 to 5 years) as the main reasons.
Political scientist Volodymyr Fesenko believes that the president and the President’s Office had a desire to change government members who were under scrutiny, but there was no time to do so.
“Why now? Because only at the end of August did both Yermak and the president have the time; it became necessary, and the personnel decisions had to be made. As soon as the political decisions were made about who would replace whom and what exactly would happen, it was carried out,” Fesenko explained in a comment to Radio Free Europe.
Fesenko also added that, for example, the foreign minister was slated for change as early as September 2023, and discussions about broader changes were first publicly mentioned in February 2024.
“Personnel exchange” between the President’s Office and the Cabinet or “new energy”?
At first, it was unclear whether the Verkhovna Rada would dismiss all the ministers who had written such letters.
It was only on the second attempt on September 5 that the Verkhovna Rada removed Iryna Vereshchuk from the post of Deputy Prime Minister. “I think this is due to the fact that her future work has not been fully communicated,” Yevhenia Kravchuk, a member of the Servant of the People faction, told Radio Liberty.
On the evening of September 4, the President of Ukraine met with the Servant of the People faction to discuss this “major government reboot.”
“The president personally spoke with each of the candidates for various ministerial positions,” Yevheniia Kravchuk said.
As the Deputy Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy, she points out that for a long time, the position of Minister of Culture and Information Policy was vacant. The Verkhovna Rada removed Oleksandr Tkachenko from this position over a year ago. Similarly, there were no heads for the Ministries of Infrastructure and Agriculture; they were managed by acting officials.
Most of the new appointments and dismissals concern the Presidential Office and the Cabinet of Ministers – people from the OP are dismissed and sent “to ministerial positions,” while Cabinet of Ministers employees are often sent to certain positions in the OP after resigning.
“To prevent people from going nowhere, they want to keep them in the presidential team, so Vereshchuk and some others will work in the Presidential Office, and maybe later they will get some other positions,” political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko explained such appointments to the Presidential Office in a commentary to Radio Liberty.
Representatives of the opposition believe that these governmental changes will not lead to renewal.
“The rotation is not clear, there is no fresh blood, to put it bluntly. That is, these are the same people, and they are just being swapped, going in circles from one ministry to another. We don’t see or hear any new ideas from fresh and new people,” MP Yulia Klymenko (Golos faction) said on Radio Liberty.
Instead, Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s associates believe that he is open to new personnel, as he had previously invited Rustem Umerov, a member of the Golos party, to the post of Defense Minister.
Oleh Rybachuk, who headed the Secretariat of the President of Ukraine and was Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration during the presidency of Viktor Yushchenko and now heads the Center for Joint Action, said on Radio Liberty that government representatives do not have enough influence now, while real decisions are made by those close to the president and the leadership of his office. However, the problem is that, unlike government officials, they do not bear proper responsibility for their decisions, Rybachuk emphasizes.
“This way, the confusion in the government becomes so evident that talking about any new faces is impossible because they are choosing again based on various criteria from different influential groups. One must go through a casting process among influential members of the office, mainly Yermak,” said Oleg Rybachuk on Radio Free Europe.
Andrii Yermak did not comment on his influence over the personnel changes in the government. Earlier, in an interview with “European Pravda,” he responded to criticism about interfering with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: “My authority ends where the president’s mandate ends” and added that he sees his role as an advisor on national security.
Political scientist Volodymyr Fesenko believes that by “new energy,” the president meant changes within the team, rather than just “new faces” in positions.
“At one time, the president ‘suffered’ from the ‘new faces’ syndrome. He thought that appointing new, young individuals would rejuvenate the government. It turned out, unfortunately, that this approach does not work,” added Fesenko.
Another reason the expert cites is that the “personnel reserve of the presidential team is limited.” Therefore, appointments were made by choosing from those who had already proven themselves within Volodymyr Zelensky’s team.
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