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Ukraine’s prime minister announced his resignation on Tuesday in the first formal step of what is expected to be a significant reshuffle of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government, which could also see the country’s ambassador to Washington replaced.
“I am tendering my resignation from the post of the Prime Minister of Ukraine,” Denys Shmyhal wrote in a letter posted on his Telegram page.
Zelenskyy said on Monday that he had offered Shmyhal’s job to 39-year-old Yulia Svyrydenko, who is currently deputy prime minister and the country’s first female economy minister.
Svyrydenko played a key role in negotiating a US–Ukraine mineral agreement. She has frequently represented Ukraine in high-level talks with Western partners, focusing on defence cooperation, economic recovery and reconstruction.
The Ukrainian parliament is scheduled to vote on the dismissal of Shmyhal’s government on Wednesday.
Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party controls the majority of seats so his nomination of Svyrydenko is expected to pass with little opposition.
The reshuffle coincides with increasing pressure on the front line by Russia’s bigger army and escalating assaults by drones and missiles on Ukrainian cities.
The Ukrainian leader recently said that he thought Shmyhal would make a good defence minister — a move that would make the current defence chief, Rustem Umerov, available to take over as Ukraine’s envoy to Washington, observers noted.
Zelenskyy had previously voiced his intention to replace US Ambassador Oksana Markarova.
Umerov, 43, was appointed as Ukraine’s defence minister in September 2023, following a series of corruption scandals. He has sought to introduce reforms, but critics said that the Defence Ministry has been plagued by mismanagement.
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