Ukraine appoints new prime minister in major government reshuffle

Incoming Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko says she volition absorption connected weapons accumulation and the system successful her caller role.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has appointed a caller premier curate and different cardinal leaders successful the largest authorities reshuffle since Russia invaded 3 years ago.

Yulia Svyrydenko, 39, took implicit arsenic premier curate from Denys Shmyhal, who had held the station since 2020, pursuing her confirmation connected Thursday by Ukraine’s parliament.

Svyrydenko antecedently served arsenic archetypal lawman premier curate and curate of economical improvement and trade, roles that brought her successful adjacent interaction with the medication of United States President Donald Trump. She was credited with negotiating a captious mineral woody betwixt Washington and Kyiv earlier this twelvemonth that helped thaw an initially frosty narration betwixt Trump and Zelenskyy.

Svyrydenko said connected societal media that she intends to absorption connected expanding Ukraine’s home weapons accumulation and the spot of its equipped forces, and supporting the economy.

“Our Government sets its people toward a Ukraine that stands steadfast connected its ain foundations — military, economic, and social,” she said. “My cardinal extremity is real, affirmative results that each Ukrainian volition consciousness successful regular life. War leaves nary country for delay. We indispensable enactment swiftly and decisively,” she said.

It is simply a large grant for maine to pb the Government of Ukraine today.

Our Government sets its people toward a Ukraine that stands steadfast connected its ain foundations — military, economic, and social. My cardinal extremity is real, affirmative results that each Ukrainian volition consciousness successful regular life.

War… pic.twitter.com/oytWMCp1S3

— Yulia Svyrydenko (@Svyrydenko_Y) July 17, 2025

Outgoing Prime Minister Shmyhal, 49, volition measurement successful arsenic defence minister, taking implicit a ministry that has struggled with a bid of corruption scandals.

Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, 50, volition enactment successful place, but Zelenskyy has named outgoing Justice Minister Olga Stefanishyna, 39, arsenic his adjacent ambassador to the US, pending US approval. Stefanishyna has acquisition moving with the European Union and NATO and besides played a relation successful negotiating the caller mineral woody with the Trump administration.

Stefanishyna volition regenerate outgoing envoy Oksana Markarova, who earned the ire of Trump owed to her affirmative moving narration with the medication of erstwhile US President Joe Biden.

Reports past week indicated that Zelenskyy was readying to take Defence Minister Rustem Umerov arsenic his adjacent US envoy, but helium was allegedly not approved by Washington, according to absorption MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak.

Other reshuffles volition spot deputies Oleksiy Sobolev and Taras Kachka instrumentality implicit arsenic the curate of economy, situation and agriculture and lawman premier curate for European integration.

Despite the shake-up successful positions, critics accidental the caller faces successful Zelenskyy’s furniture stay mostly the same. They person besides accused the Ukrainian person of consolidating powerfulness by stacking cardinal authorities posts with his “loyalists”.

Source:

Al Jazeera and quality agencies