Massive personnel changes in the Government of Ukraine during the war
2023.01.24 08:49
Massive personnel changes in the Government of Ukraine during the war
By Tiffany Smith
Budrigannews.com – In the largest shakeup of its wartime leadership since Russia’s invasion last year, Ukraine fired the governors of five battlefield provinces and a number of other senior officials on Tuesday.
Separately, on Tuesday, Berlin received a long-awaited decision on whether allies could send heavy tanks made in Germany to Ukraine after Poland said it had sent its request in writing.
Governors of the Kyiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions were among the more than a dozen senior Ukrainian officials who resigned or were fired on Tuesday. Over the past year, all five regions have been major battlefields, giving their governors a national profile that is unusually high.
Other people who left included a deputy defense minister, a deputy prosecutor, a deputy head of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office, and two deputy ministers in charge of regional development.
While not all had been associated with allegations of corruption, some had. Ukraine is under international pressure to demonstrate that it can be a dependable steward of billions of dollars in Western aid despite its shaky governance and history of graft.
“There are already personnel decisions – some today, some tomorrow – regarding officials at various levels in ministries and other central government structures, as well as in the regions and in law enforcement,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy stated in a video address delivered overnight.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a aide to Zelenskiy, tweeted: Society is seen and heard by the president. Additionally, he directly addresses a crucial public demand for justice for all.”
One of the first major corruption scandals to become public since the war began 11 months ago was the arrest of a deputy infrastructure minister for allegedly siphoning off $400,000 from contracts to purchase generators. This occurred two days after the purge.
The Defense Ministry claimed that Deputy Defense Minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov, who was in charge of providing troops with supplies, had resigned in order to maintain trust in the face of what it called unfounded allegations of corruption from the media. It came as a result of a newspaper report that the ministry overpaid for troops’ food. The ministry denied the report.
Oleksiy Symonenko, Deputy Prosecutor General, was fired without any explanation from the prosecutor’s office. The Ukrainian media had criticized Symonenko for going on vacation in Spain. Although Zelenskiy did not mention any officials in his address, he did announce a new restriction against officials taking vacations overseas.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, Zelenskiy’s deputy chief of staff, also gave no reason for his resignation. He had been involved in the campaign for the president’s election in 2019 and, more recently, was in charge of regional policy.
The changes are a rare shakeup in a leadership in Kyiv that was remarkably stable during the war. Zelenskiy has mostly stuck with his team, which is made up of fellow political novices that the former television actor brought to power when he was elected in a landslide in 2019—aside from purging a spy agency in July.
Poland’s announcement that it had officially requested Berlin’s permission to export German-made tanks to Ukraine seems to leave German Chancellor Olaf Scholz little room to delay a decision in what has become the main argument among allies about how to support Ukraine the best.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki stated at a news conference, “I hope that this answer from Germany will come quickly, because the Germans are delaying, dodging, and acting in a way that is difficult to understand.” They don’t want to help Ukraine defend itself in a larger way, as we can see.”
A spokesperson for the German government stated: We’ll handle the proceedings with the utmost vigor.
Kyiv has been pleading for Western tanks for months, claiming that it is in desperate need of them to provide its forces with the firepower and mobility they need to break through Russian defensive lines and retake occupied territory.
The Leopards of Germany, which are used by armies all over Europe, are widely regarded as the best option due to their availability in large numbers and ease of deployment and upkeep. However, Germany has resisted pressure to pledge any of its own Leopards and has stated that its allies have not yet formally requested permission to send their own.
Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak posted on Twitter, “The Germans have already received our request for permission to transfer Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.”
He continued, “I also appeal to the German side to join the coalition of nations supporting Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks.” The security of Europe as a whole is at stake, so this is our common cause!”
The decision to send tanks was a political one, according to Germany’s military chief of staff. According to a high-ranking official, Scholz and his cabinet would ultimately make the decision.
At a defense conference held in Berlin by Handelsblatt, Tobias Lindner, state secretary at the foreign ministry, stated, “At the end of the day, the decision will obviously be taken at the chancellery, in consensus by the government.”
Despite significant losses on both sides, the war’s front lines have been largely frozen in place for two months. It is widely believed that Russia and Ukraine will launch offensives in the coming months.
Last week, Western nations pledged billions of dollars in military aid, but Kyiv has yet to receive hundreds of heavy battle tanks in anticipation of Germany’s decision regarding the fate of its Leopard tanks.
Spring and summer, according to a Ukrainian official, will be decisive.
In an interview with the news website Delfi, Vadym Skibitsky, deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, stated, “If the major Russian offensive planned for this time fails, it will be the ruin of Russia and Putin.”
