Zelenskyy on "lull in dismissals": More decisions to come

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced that there will be further dismissals for civil servants who do not meet the "fundamental requirements of the state and society".

Source: President Zelenskyy in his evening video address to Ukrainians on 31 January

Quote: "Now there is a certain lull in personnel decisions... But this does not mean that all the necessary steps have been taken. There will be decisions. Those in the system who do not meet the fundamental requirements of the state and society should not outstay their welcome."

Background: During these past weeks, a wave of dismissals has taken place in the Office of the President, the Office of Prosecutor General, the Cabinet of Ministers, including the Ministry of Defence, and military administrations in a lot of oblasts. 

In particular, Oleksii Arestovych, who was an advisor, was fired from the Office of the President after another mistake, along with Kyrylo Tymoshenko, who was the Deputy Head of the President’s Office and got into a scandal using an expensive car. 

Andrii Kostin, Prosecutor General, has dismissed his Deputy Oleksii Symonenko after Ukrainska Pravda’s investigation about his vacation in Spain during the war and martial law in Ukraine.

The Ministry of Defence have fired two officials: Bohdan Khmelnytskyi, who was the head of the procurement department of the Ministry and who became involved in a journalistic investigation about the state food procurement for the army for unreasonably high prices; and Vyacheslav Shapovalov, who was the Deputy Minister of Defence, he resigned himself because of the above-mentioned investigation. 

On 24 January, Zelenskyy fired five heads of oblast military administrations: Dnipropetrovsk (Valentyn Reznichenko), Zaporizhzhia (Oleksandr Starukh), Kyiv (Oleksii Kuleba), Sumy (Dmytro Zhyvytskyi) and Kherson (Yaroslav Yanushevych). He may soon dismiss Serhii Haidai from the position of the head of Luhansk Oblast Military Administration.

Oleksii Kuleba took the position in the Office of the President after Kyrylo Tymoshenko left.

Moreover, after Denys Monastyrskyi, Minister of Internal Affairs, tragically died, his position remains available. At the moment, Ihor Klymenko, Head of the National Police of Ukraine, is the acting minister.

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