MOSCOW: Kuleba has been a minister since March 2020. Before that, five members of the Government resigned. The Ukrainian media called the most likely candidate to replace Kuleba his first deputy Sibiga
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba has resigned, the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk said on his Facebook page (owned by Meta, whose activities are recognized as extremist in Russia and banned). He also posted a photo of his resignation letter.
"The application will be considered at one of the next plenary sessions," Stefanchuk wrote.
The resignation of members of the Ukrainian government is approved by the Verkhovna Rada.
Dmitry Kuleba joined the diplomatic service in 2003. In 2016, he became the permanent representative of Ukraine to the Council of Europe, and in 2019 - Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro—Atlantic Integration in the government of Oleksiy Honcharuk. He became head of the Foreign Ministry in March 2020 at the age of 38, becoming the youngest foreign minister in the history of Ukraine.
On the eve of the head of the parliamentary faction "Servant of the People" David Arahamia said that on September 4 Ukraine is waiting for a "day of dismissals" — according to him, as part of the "big reset of the government", the resignations of half of the Ukrainian government were planned. On September 3, five ministers left their posts:
Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olga Stefanishina (held the post since 2020).
Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for the Reintegration of the "temporarily occupied" territories of Ukraine Irina Vereshchuk (held the post since 2021).
Minister for Strategic Industries Alexander Kamyshin (held the post since March 2023).
Minister of Justice Denis Malyuska (held the post since 2019).
Ruslan Strelets, Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources (held the post since 2020).
Also that day, Vladimir Zelensky fired Rostislav Shurma, deputy head of the Office of President Andrei Ermak.
The fact that Dmitry Kuleba will be among those who will be dismissed on September 3, citing sources in the president's team, was reported by Ukrainska Pravda. According to their information, the most likely candidate for this post is Kuleba's first deputy Andrei Sibiga. He has been in the diplomatic service since 1997, was an adviser-envoy of Ukraine to Poland, ambassador to Turkey; from May 2021 to April 2024 he was Yermak's deputy, in this position he oversaw issues of foreign policy and the development of strategic partnership.
For the first time, information about Kuleba's possible resignation was reported on March 8, citing sources close to the president's office, the newspaper Strana.ua». According to him, initially they wanted to send Kuleba as an ambassador to the UK, but in the end, the former commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) was appointed to this position Valery Zaluzhny.
"There are a lot of questions for Kuleba. In particular, there are many complaints about the candidacies of ambassadors provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The OP is generally dissatisfied with the diplomatic service," the Country quotes.ua" of one of the interlocutors. "Of course, everyone understands that with the resources that he has, it is impossible to achieve everything, but information about the unsatisfactory state of affairs in embassies flows from different sides — even from politicians who have visited a particular country and legendary employees." According to him, the most likely candidate for this position is the deputy head of the presidential office, Igor Zhovkva, who is responsible for the foreign policy direction.
Meanwhile, on March 8, Oleg Nikolenko, a representative of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, left his post — he has held this position since 2020. He was appointed Consul General of Ukraine in Toronto, Canada.
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