Brendan Smialowski/Pool AFP/AP/dpa Too clean to work: Selenskij and Yermak (l.) can no longer use Kuleba (center) (Kiev, September 6, 2023)
It is not clear what the Ukrainian government ministers who were fired last week did wrong even after a few days. Likewise, it is not possible to predict that the designated successor will be better able to solve the real problems of a country at war than his predecessors who were fired. Especially since some of the politicians who were fired from the ministry went straight to the presidential administration.
The justification for the dismissal of Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was even clearer. President Volodymyr Zelensky was quoted as saying that he spent more time promoting his book than trying to get Ukraine’s Western patrons to provide Ukraine with more weapons and more lenient guidelines for attacks inside Russia. Kuleba had little inclination to “get his hands dirty,” the British newspaper quoted him as saying. economist Presidential Administration Source. US Portal Politico On the other hand, he wanted to know that Kuleba had very good relations with Western governments and, above all, maintained direct contacts. The fact that Kuleba had increasingly attended private meetings with Western diplomats since his official appointment was perceived as unpleasant by the presidential administration. In essence, the accusation was not that Kuleba had not done his job, but rather the opposite. It was that Kuleba had made his work too independent and thus evaded the control of the presidential administration.
It is surprising that many Western politicians clearly regretted Kuleba’s dismissal. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reportedly thanked him explicitly in a farewell phone call, and Annalena Bearbok said with candid sentimentality that “we agreed to meet in the Grail at 5:30 after the war.” Like Kuleba, Infrastructure Minister Olexander Kubrakow, who was cleared of corruption, was also accused of having too close ties to Western patrons when he left in May. Nevertheless, Andriy Yermak, the head of the presidential administration and Zelensky’s closest associate, also wanted Kuleba removed, the Ukrainian portal writes. Strana News.
On the other hand, the new Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Andrij Sibiga, is a former member of the presidential administration and a fellow student of Yermak. According to his explanation to the Ukrainian parliament after his appointment, he wants to pursue diplomacy “loudly, if necessary”. This is the style he described in an interview with Andrij Melnyk. Berlin newspaper He also boasted of having been friends with Sibiga since his days as a student at the Kiev Institute of International Relations in the 1990s. The released photos show a network of followers of Ukrainian Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, who have been working in the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry for at least 30 years and have been passing positions among themselves.
One aspect of this personnel carousel is Yermak and Zelensky’s desire to strengthen the role of the presidential administration in Ukraine’s constitutional system at the expense of the parliament and government. The presidential administration is loyal only to the head of state and is effectively a secondary government, which sets the stage for a gradual shift toward authoritarianism. For example, Yermak recently visited the United States with his undemobilized Defense Minister Rustem Umjerov to ask the Biden administration for permission to launch a missile strike on Russia, but so far without success.
Another aspect of the cabinet reshuffle may be even more banal. Ukrainian political parties, especially those without a real profile like Zelenskiy’s “Servant of the People” party, are repositories of patrons and interest groups aiming to enrich themselves in the process. That’s why ministries for infrastructure or agriculture are considered “fat” departments, as Western subsidies pass through the desks of those who make decisions there, often to old friends or benefactors. Ukraine’s Western patrons have suffered from this friction for years, but their fight against it has so far been largely ineffective. On the contrary. As the British investor newsletter puts it BNE Intellinews Recently, I wrote that politicians who do not like corruption have no chance in Ukraine, because those around them immediately perceive such people as whistleblowers and informers and try to get rid of them at the next opportunity.
