What Zelensky’s new government reshuffle says about his election plans and next phase of the Ukraine war

First published in Deník N.

Ukraine will once again have a new prime minister and probably also a new defence minister. Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelensky has already shown several times that he is not afraid to change even what at first sight appears to work well. So far, all his interventions have worked out for him.

At the weekend, the public not only in Ukraine was stirred by news coming directly from Zelensky – the cabinet reshuffle is already a done deal, the country will get a new prime minister and new ministers, and the changes will also affect key security portfolios.

The end of the prime minister

The first expert commentaries are hesitant. Yet even they admit one thing about the Ukrainian leader – the energy with which he continues to run the country in wartime. His fearlessness in making unexpected changes is unrelenting.

The explanation of the latest steps taken by the Ukrainian president was, however, not particularly concrete this time. He wants true experts in all positions. As if they had not been there until now.

“Ukraine is changing its political strategy. Each priority area of foreign policy will be assigned to a specific person with substantial experience who is capable of implementing what we agree on at the leaders’ level and what the Ukrainian people expect,” Zelensky explained on 12 July the reshuffle in government posts less than a year after he installed Yulia Svyrydenko in the prime minister’s chair. Her cabinet will therefore probably not celebrate its first birthday on 17 July.

Svyrydenko when, a year ago, she addressed Ukrainian lawmakers for the first time in her new role as prime minister. Source: Office of the President of Ukraine.

According to the Ukrainian service of the BBC, whose journalists spoke to unnamed sources in the office of the Ukrainian head of state, such a fundamental change has been under consideration “for some time”.

Zelensky had been expressing dissatisfaction above all with the ministries of justice, education and digitalisation.

From prime minister to diplomat, from director to chief of staff

The biggest sensation was caused by the confirmation from the prime minister herself, who admitted she had been offered another position – it appears she will go to the United States as ambassador.

That is without doubt the most important destination for Ukraine, even though the task of the head of the diplomatic mission will be something completely different from what Svyrydenko had been responsible for until now – she will not be part of shaping her state’s foreign policy, but rather a logistics coordinator and organiser of meetings of politicians and above all presidents.

“I remain ready to serve Ukraine,” she wrote on Facebook.

She will most likely be able to do so – the current Ukrainian ambassador Olha Stefanishyna has announced her departure “for personal reasons”.

According to well-known Ukrainian MP Olexander Honcharenko, Stefanishyna is already back in Kyiv and anti-corruption bodies are preparing charges against her. She too, like Svyrydenko, did not last even a year in office.

Although Svyrydenko was clearly among Zelensky’s favourites, she had recently been repeatedly targeted by MPs – allegedly she did not communicate with them and promised the International Monetary Fund the impossible. There was, however, no public speculation about replacing her in the top post.

Who will replace her as prime minister is not publicly known, but a lot of names are being whispered.

The hot candidate is said to be a man who knows everything about Ukraine’s energy sector and its weaknesses and strengths – and that will probably be the central topic of the autumn phase of the war, during which the Russians will try to knock Ukraine’s energy grid off its feet. Sergii Koretskyi is the director of Naftogaz – according to many experts, a successful one.

Even before the government changes were made public, Zelensky hastily met precisely with Koretskyi, which suggests there may be something to the unofficial information.

He also summoned the current energy minister Denys Shmyhal, who had already served as Ukrainian prime minister between 2020 and 2025. His name also appeared among journalists’ tips.

It is interesting that both favourites come from the energy sector.

Since Volodymyr Zelensky took office as president, four people have served as Ukraine’s prime minister.

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, he has replaced the prime minister for the second time. During the full-scale war with Russia, he has also replaced the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and the defence minister.

According to information from Ukrainian journalists, the cabinet will be practically completely replaced.

For example, education minister Oksen Lisovyi, a man with an exceptional reputation among soldiers at the front, according to the president’s team failed to improve the situation in the border regions and to reconcile the visions of Ukraine and its neighbours on what schools should look like in areas with ethnic minorities – for example, the Hungarian one.

However, dissatisfaction with Lisovyi is, according to some commentators, evidence that men who proved themselves at the front do not necessarily have to be able to put their combat experience to use in the state administration.

Lisovyi was, before the full-scale war, the head of a school for exceptionally gifted children, so he did have practical experience in the field. Nevertheless, the veteran-minister has long been criticised by many MPs as well.

Ukrainian education minister Oksen Lisovyi volunteered for the army immediately after the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He served in the elite 95th Air Assault Brigade. Source: O. Lisovyi.

According to Zelensky, several other ministers were also not doing a good job – above all those involved in the state’s foreign policy. In this way, the president made it clear that Ukraine can win the war only with much more forceful support from the West. And that now is the moment when partners must be persuaded to significantly speed up the pace and shorten the time that usually elapses between promises and their implementation.

Some lack creativity, others humility

Renowned Ukrainian commentator Konstantin Skorkin, originally from occupied Luhansk, considered Zelensky’s announcement of a cabinet reshuffle unexpected. “Even many members of his team learned about it from Telegram,” he told the BBC.

According to him, there had never been any major criticism of prime minister Svyrydenko. She had the reputation of a technocrat and a loyal executor of the president’s orders, the expert said. “Perhaps now a more creative prime minister is needed.”

Zelensky in the United States in 2024. He has always tried to appear very energetic and action-oriented. Source: president.gov.ua

By contrast, the replacement of defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov was logical, according to Skorkin – the technocrat turned out to be a politician with big ambitions, he was talked about too often as a future prime minister, perhaps even president, and so it is possible that Zelensky needed someone less prominent.

Skorkin also pointed out that Zelensky uses reshuffles in the country’s leadership to maintain a certain dynamism that is characteristic of his style of governance. “Above all, no stagnation,” the political scientist explained the president’s decision.

Other names are also in play

Fairly frequent changes in the Ukrainian cabinet, carried out personally by Zelensky, have become the target of humorous jibes. For example, political commentator Olexandr Notevskyi jokingly suggested: “To avoid confusion, I propose appointing Shmyhal as prime minister in even-numbered years. In odd-numbered years, dismiss him and give him another ministry.” In the past, Shmyhal was not only prime minister, but also defence minister and then energy minister.

It is not clear whether Zelensky is again considering him for the post of prime minister. According to most commentators, he has already decided in favour of the director of Naftogaz. Nevertheless, other names are also being voiced in the public space – for example, that of Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov.

President Zelensky also met over the weekend with Kharkiv mayor Terekhov. The media speculate about him as another candidate for prime minister. Source: Zelensky Official/Telegram.

According to observers, Terekhov could, in the role of minister for community and regional development or as minister for the reconstruction of Ukraine, capitalise on the vast experience he has gained during the daily Russian attacks on Kharkiv – a multicultural, pre-war predominantly Russian-speaking city which, despite the shelling, still leads a relatively active life.

Kharkiv, an eastern Ukrainian city severely tested by the Russians. Source: Gabriel Kuchta, Deník N.

In addition to government posts, Zelensky also wants to shake up positions in the diplomatic corps.

He will probably send new faces to European countries as well. “We need a new level of cooperation with our partners to ensure that agreements on arms supplies are fulfilled,” he explained. He stressed that everything agreed verbally must be implemented much faster and more decisively than so far.

How to make Europe keep its promises

According to the BBC, the new ministers and diplomats are primarily meant to prevent a further deterioration in relations with Poland, for which, however, Zelensky’s critics say he himself is mainly to blame, and to try to improve cooperation with Hungary, which is still faltering.

Volodymyr Zelensky returns by post a withdrawn Polish state decoration in protest at criticism of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army by the Polish president. Source: Office of the Ukrainian President.

Zelensky is also trying to dispel experts’ doubts about whether the promised US licence for the production of missiles for Patriot air-defence systems will actually have time to take effect before the end of the war with Russia.

“It is also about support packages for Ukraine that were announced but have still not been fully implemented,” the Ukrainian leader complained, signalling that he expected diplomats to engage in a more forceful dialogue with sluggish Europeans and to be able to exert greater pressure on them.

Two men in the same presidential arena

In similar upheavals in high government circles, the greatest attention is paid to former commander of the Ukrainian armed forces Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, now Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Kingdom and, according to opinion polls, one of Zelensky’s main competitors in potential presidential elections.

Those are now being discussed more intensively precisely in connection with the cabinet reshuffle – according to many commentators, it is Zelensky’s preparation for an autumn vote. Sources from the presidential office, however, categorically deny this.

Yet when Zaluzhnyi was last in Kyiv, the president’s team tried to find out whether he was serious about running in possible presidential elections. And according to findings by Ukrajinska pravda, the general answered Zelensky’s direct question about his participation in the presidential race by saying: “Yes, I will take part.”

The president tried to explain to the ambassador that, given the favourable developments at the front, it was possible to start slowly preparing for the presidential contest, but that it would not be good if the elections were to split a society that is now united into hostile camps. The risk of a Zelensky–Zaluzhnyi duel lay precisely in such a rift, the president argued.

The meeting ended with a handshake and both participants sticking to their original positions.

It is not known whether the current government reshuffle will also affect Zaluzhnyi. For now, according to Ukrainian sources, no other post is being considered for the charismatic general.