Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced another cabinet reshuffle on Sunday, roughly a year after appointing Yulia Svyrydenko as prime minister. She succeeded Denys Shmyhal last year but, as a protégé of Andriy Yermak, appears to have lost her political protection following the dismissal of the former head of the presidential office.
Even when she was appointed, Svyrydenko was widely regarded as a close Yermak ally. The longtime power broker, once the second-most influential figure in Zelensky’s administration, had helped propel one of Ukraine’s youngest female politicians into one of the country’s highest offices.
The Path to the Prime Minister’s Office
Ukraine’s second female prime minister took office on 17 July last year after Zelensky announced a government reshuffle. Official statements indicated that he had already been considering the move a year earlier. Although reports at the time suggested that Shmyhal had lost the president’s confidence, he was immediately appointed defense minister.
Svyrydenko’s political rise began after Zelensky’s victory in the 2019 presidential election. A graduate of a prestigious business school, she initially served as deputy economy minister before becoming deputy head of the presidential office.
After Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk resigned and Shmyhal succeeded him, Svyrydenko remained under Yermak’s supervision for another year before becoming deputy prime minister and minister of economic development and trade in 2021. In that role, she negotiated the controversial agreement with the US on the joint extraction of rare earth minerals.
While Zelensky and US President Donald Trump clashed in the Oval Office in February, Svyrydenko and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent continued the negotiations behind the scenes. The agreement was eventually signed in April and entered into force on 1 May 2025.
Throughout her rise, Svyrydenko enjoyed the strong backing of her former superior, Andriy Yermak, the influential head of the Office of the President, whom critics nicknamed the “black magician” of Ukrainian politics. Yermak was widely regarded as the driving force behind her appointment as prime minister. He later became embroiled in the Midas corruption case.
At the center of the case was Herman Halushchenko, who had served as energy minister under Shmyhal and later as justice minister under Svyrydenko. He allegedly oversaw a corruption scheme involving the state-owned nuclear company Energoatom through which more than $100m was laundered.
The money was allegedly transferred to a fund registered on the British Caribbean island of Anguilla before being seized by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP). Although the scandal also implicated longtime Zelensky associates, including Timur Mindich and Oleksandr Zuckerman, both of whom later fled to Israel, Yermak ultimately became its most prominent political casualty.
Halushchenko’s successor as energy minister, Svitlana Hrynchuk, also resigned. Reports suggested that anti-corruption investigators regarded her departure as retaliation by Yermak’s circle for their efforts to defend the agencies’ independence. In July last year, Zelensky placed both NABU and SAP under the authority of the prosecutor general, who was himself under investigation by the two bodies at the time.
After several days of public protests and pressure from Brussels, the Ukrainian Parliament passed legislation restoring the agencies’ independence. Before it took effect, however, officers from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) – which reports directly to the president and is therefore closely tied to his office – raided NABU’s headquarters.
The political fallout extended far beyond the anti-corruption agencies and ultimately altered the balance of power within Zelensky’s administration. The transition was reportedly overseen by US Special Envoy for Russia and Ukraine General Keith Kellogg, who visited Kyiv during the reshuffle. Ukrainian media suggested at the time that his role was effectively to endorse the transfer of power. Shmyhal became energy minister, while Mykhailo Fedorov succeeded him as defense minister.
Several Factors Behind the Reshuffle
Prominent daily Ukrainska Pravda noted that Svyrydenko had served as prime minister for less than a year, governing “from one Ukraine recovery conference to the next”.
“She was appointed after last year’s forum in Rome and dismissed after the conference in Gdansk”, its correspondent Roman Romaniuk wrote.
The paper spoke to several sources on Bankova Street – where the presidential office is located – who identified a number of factors behind the reshuffle. Discussions about replacing Svyrydenko had been “actively circulating for about a month” at the highest levels of government, with a final decision initially expected in August.
Zelensky’s decision to dismiss her in mid-July was ultimately prompted by an unexpected conversation the previous week. After that discussion, Svyrydenko was presented with a fait accompli.
Sources cited by Ukrainska Pravda identified the shift in the balance of power following Yermak’s dismissal as the principal reason for the reshuffle.
“Svyrydenko’s government was formed under the leadership of the former head of the President’s Office, and after his resignation, new heavyweights want to secure their own share of influence”, anonymous officials on Bankova Street told the paper.
According to the daily, the second reason was growing dissatisfaction with the existing model of government oversight. Sources on Bankova Street told the newspaper that the president had become increasingly frustrated with a system in which his chief of staff approved virtually every strategic decision, leaving the cabinet little room to act independently.
Government officials said ministers had so little autonomy in drafting legislation and making decisions that Zelensky had reportedly remarked during several meetings: “Well, at least you can do this without me.”
Strategic decisions will remain in the president’s hands, according to Ukrainska Pravda, but responsibility for the government’s day-to-day operations is expected to pass to the new prime minister, who will be encouraged to put forward his own initiatives.
The Timing Behind the Reshuffle
The newspaper’s sources cited timing as the third factor. Most of this year’s major international events relating to Ukraine – from meetings with Kyiv’s allies to the NATO summit in Ankara and the Ukraine Recovery Conference in late June – have already taken place.
Officials in Zelensky’s office reportedly believe that the incoming prime minister will now have sufficient time before the end of the parliamentary recess to form a new cabinet and prepare for the autumn political season.
The fourth reason concerns personnel. The report says Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has clashed with influential military commanders and defense contractors with interests tied to the defense budget, which they fear could be threatened by his reform agenda.
These groups also view reforms to mobilization and military procurement as a direct threat to their financial interests, the newspaper reported.
Zelensky therefore reportedly faced a difficult choice: continue backing Fedorov as the government’s main defense against allegations of corruption or, as one source put it, “move forward with his ‘old friends’ while maintaining the stability of the system”.
According to officials on Bankova Street, the fifth – and ultimately most important – reason is that the presidential administration has accepted that the long-promised elections will not take place this autumn.
“Instead, the country will have to prepare for what may be the harshest winter since the start of the Great War”, the newspaper wrote, adding that Russia is expected to intensify its attacks on Ukraine’s remaining energy infrastructure.
Another catalyst for the reshuffle was Ambassador Olha Stefaniishyna’s visit to Washington. The former deputy prime minister for European integration and later justice minister reportedly informed Zelensky that she intended to leave the diplomatic service, giving the president an opportunity to reorganize his team.
Following Oksana Markarova’s resignation as ambassador to the United States last August, Zelensky used the vacant diplomatic post to move the justice minister into another senior role without formally dismissing her from the government, Ukrainska Pravda reported. According to the newspaper’s sources, he has now offered the same position to Svyrydenko.
That appears to explain Zelensky’s message on X:
“I am grateful to Yulia for her clear, balanced, and effective work as prime minister, for her many years of productive service on Ukraine’s team, and I have offered her the opportunity to lead a new and important area of relations with a key partner.”
Who Will Succeed Svyrydenko?
Following the announcement of Svyrydenko’s dismissal, speculation over her successor began immediately. Davyd Arakhamiia, leader of the parliamentary faction of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, circulated a shortlist of potential candidates in a private chat, according to Ukrainska Pravda.
The names were said to include Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, former Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, Naftogaz chief executive Serhii Koretskyi and Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov.
The newspaper said Fedorov had already turned down what would effectively have been a promotion during a recent private meeting with Zelensky, arguing that no one else could complete the reforms he had begun at the Ministry of Defense. Although Terekhov is preparing to enter national politics, Ukrainska Pravda describes him as a loyal ally of the president and says their recent meeting mainly served to bolster both men’s approval ratings.
Sources on Bankova Street said Zelensky had never seriously considered returning Shmyhal to the post. Although Arakhamiia – an ally of the Kharkiv mayor – proposed Terekhov, the president is said to have already chosen Koretskyi as Svyrydenko’s successor.
According to officials familiar with the meeting, Zelensky’s conversation with his preferred candidate was brief. He asked Koretskyi whether his experience running the state-owned energy company Naftogaz had prepared him to lead the government. Koretskyi accepted.
Sources said he acknowledged that he did not yet fully appreciate the scale of the challenges ahead but was nevertheless prepared to “give it a try”.
Zelensky then outlined the government’s immediate priorities: preparing Ukraine for what could be its harshest winter since 2022, protecting energy and fuel infrastructure from intensifying Russian attacks – including the growing use of ballistic missiles – stabilizing the economy and ensuring that international assistance is managed effectively.
According to Ukrainska Pravda, the incoming cabinet will now have to negotiate virtually every aspect of the new government from scratch, including the number of ministries and whether some departments should be merged or divided.
One question, however, already appears to have been settled. A successor to Svyrydenko has been chosen, bringing to an end the rise of a prime minister closely associated with Andriy Yermak.