PM, 16 ministers, defense minister post still vacant: reshuffles in Ukraine's cabinet

PM, 16 ministers, defense minister post still vacant: reshuffles in Ukraine's cabinet The Verkhovna Rada has appointed Sergey Koretsky as the country's prime minister© REUTERS/Valentyn OgirenkoMOSCOW, July 16. /TASS/. Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada (parliament) has appointed Sergey Koretsky as the country's prime minister, according to a live broadcast of Thursday’s hearing. In addition, the Verkhovna Rada voted to appoint 16 ministers to the new Cabinet, except the defense and foreign ministers. TASS has compiled the main information about the situation in the country. New prime minister - The Verkhovna Rada has appointed Sergey Koretsky as the country's prime minister. - A total of 289 lawmakers supported the decision, which required 226 votes for approval. - Sergey Koretsky, born in Ukraine's western Volyn Region in 1978, is a well-known businessman in the country. - After graduating from Lutsk National Technical University in the 2000s, he tried his hand at several businesses. - In 2022, he assumed leadership of the state-run energy companies Ukrnafta and Ukrtatnafta. - Ukrainian media outlets suggest that Koretsky, who has no public administration experience, was appointed prime minister thanks to his informal ties with Vladimir Zelensky and the latter's old friend and business partner Timur Mindich. - Meanwhile, there is no official information on Koretsky's involvement in corruption scandals linked to Mindich. - Koretsky represented Kiev's position in the situation surrounding the suspension of oil transit through the Druzhba pipeline in January-April 2026 and was responsible for addressing the "damage" that Kiev claimed resulted from the suspension. Ministers - The Verkhovna Rada voted to appoint ministers of the new Cabinet, except the defense and foreign ministers. - A total of 264 lawmakers voted "for," 15 voted "against," and 19 abstained, with 20 lawmakers not having voted. - Koretsky submitted a "package" of 16 ministerial candidates to the Verkhovna Rada, excluding the defense and foreign ministers, whose nominations must be submitted by Vladimir Zelensky. - According to the list published by lawmakers and Rada Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk, Denis Shmygal will retain the post of first deputy prime minister and energy minister, Sergey Marchenko will remain finance minister, and Tatyana Berezhnaya will remain culture minister. - Health Minister Viktor Lyashko and Sports Minister Matvey Bedny will also retain their posts. - In previous cabinet reshuffles, the Ministry of Economy was merged with the Ministries of Agriculture and Environment, headed by Alexey Sobolev. Now the ministries are being separated again, and Sobolev loses his place in the cabinet. Alexander Kravchenko has been proposed as the new Minister of Economy, and Taras Vysotsky as Minister of Agricultural Policy. - The new Minister of Justice is set to be Denis Maslov, and the Minister of Communities and Territories is set to be Vitaly Bezgin. Both are parliament deputies, and the Rada will also have to vote to terminate their mandates. - Furthermore, the approval of the new cabinet will entail changes in regional authorities, as the head of the Nikolaevsky region, Vitaly Kim, has been nominated for the post of Minister for Veterans Affairs, and the head of the Kiev region, Nikolay Kalashnik, will become Minister of Infrastructure. - Andrey Butenko was proposed for the post of Minister of Education and Science, Denis Ulyutin for Minister of Social Policy, and Oksana Ferchuk for Minister of Digital Transformation. - The current Ukrainian representative to the EU, Vsevolod Chentsov, should become Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration. - The most significant point in the new list was the proposal to appoint the current head of the National Police, Ivan Vyhovsky, as Minister of Internal Affairs. Situation surrounding the appointment of the new defense minister - Today's prime minister vote took place amid widespread protests across Ukraine, sparked by Kiev's decision not to retain Mikhail Fyodorov as defense chief in the new cabinet, instead appointing Interior Minister Igor Klimenko as defense minister. - The plan was for parliament to vote on cabinet members after appointing the new premier, but due to the protests, the Verkhovna Rada is facing difficulties in obtaining enough votes to appoint Klimenko as head of the defense ministry. - A two-hour break in the parliamentary hearing was announced after the Koretsky vote to allow lawmakers to debate cabinet nominations. - On July 15, Fyodorov confirmed on his Telegram channel that he was leaving the post of Defense Minister. - On July 16, Fyodorov, at a briefing on the results of his activities, stated that Zelensky had offered him the position of his adviser, but he refused. - He also confirmed that he had proposed to Zelensky the dismissal of the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian military, Alexander Syrsky, and the Chief of the General Staff of the Ukrainian military, Andrey Gnatov. 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