This is Ukraine's New Prime Minister (and His Cabinet), According to Sources

As part of the announced March 4 government reshuffle, some ministers will leave the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers. According to Hromadske's sources within the leadership of the presidential Servant of the People party, these include Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk.

Arsen Avakov, who's been the interior minister since 2014, will remain in his seat.

Later, after the meeting between Servant of the People and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Servant of the People MP Oleksandr Dubinsky read out the expected personnel changes and, therefore, confirmed Hromadske's list.

The New Prime Minister

Hromadske's sources disclosed that Denys Shmyhal  – currently the minister for communities and territories development of Ukraine, as well as the deputy prime minister – will replace Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk.

According to the sources, Shmyhal's candidacy was put forward by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself.

Prior to his ministerial days, Shmyhal was a top manager at oligarch Rinat Akhmetov's DTEK energy company.

In order to appoint Shmyhal as the prime minister, the current prime minister Honcharuk would need to file resignation, which Hromadske's interlocutors state he has already done.

READ MORE: Denys Shmyhal Appointed New Minister for Communities of Ukraine

Only One Member of "Old Guard" Will Stay  

Arsen Avakov, the Interior Minister of Ukraine, is the only minister that worked in the previous government (under Petro Poroshenko) to save his seat. Finance Minister Oksana Markarova who also headed her ministry pre-Zelenskyy will lose her post.

Markarova will be replaced by Ihor Umanskyi who served as the finance minister under Yulia Tymoshenko's government between April 2009 and March 2010.

Who Else is Staying Though?

Among the Zelenskyy-era ministers, Mykhailo Fedorov, the Minister of Digital Transformation, will stay, as well as the Minister of Justice, Denys Malyuska. The Minister of Infrastructure, Vladyslav Krykliy will likewise keep his position, while the Minister of Energy, Oleksiy Orzhel  is still on the chopping block – sources say that discussions about his role in the government are continuing.

And while some ministers are avoiding pink slips, their role in the government will still change – Tymofiy Mylovanov, the Minister of Economic Development, Trade, and Agriculture will continue to keep a ministerial rank, though his profile will be reduced to only the Ministry of Agriculture.

READ MORE: What We Know About Upcoming Personnel Changes in Ukraine Government

Meanwhile, Dmytro Kuleba, the current vice-minister for Eurointegration, will keep his post entirely and add Minister of Foreign Affairs to his portfolio (replacing Vadym Prystaiko).

Other Reappointments

Health Minister Zoryana Skaletska will be replaced by a surgeon, Illya Yemets.  While Yanukovych-era officials are formally barred from holding political office under Ukraine’s lustration law, Yemets avoids this fate due to the short duration of his previous ministry – less than a year. At the moment, Yemets serves as head of the government center for pediatric cardiology.

The Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers Dmytro Dubilet will be replaced by Oleh Nemchinov. Nemchinov served as a member of the Lviv regional council between 2006 and 2010, and since April 2017 he worked as a state secretary at the Ministry of Youth and Sport.

The new Minister of Defense, replacing Andriy Zahorodnyuk, will now be Andriy Taran, a career soldier who had worked as a military attache to Ukraine’s embassy in the United States. From the start of the conflict in the Donbas, he served as Ukraine’s representative at the Joint Center for Control and Coordination and was a member of a working group on security at the Trilateral Contact Group in Minsk. Taran also served as the first deputy commander of the ground forces of the Ukrainian military.

And the Minister of Economic Development (now separate from the Ministry of Agriculture to be headed by Timofey Milovanov) will see Roman Zhukovskiy take the ministry. He had previously worked at the Office of Economic Policy and Economic Reforms at the Presidential Administration.

The new Minister of Social Policy, replacing Yuliya Sokolovska, will be Maryna Lazebna. She led the State Social Service in the previous Poroshenko administration under the Groysman government but was fired by Honcharuk’s government.

And the Ones Without Known Replacements

Finally, the Minister of Education, Anna Novosad, was originally slated to stay, but she has allegedly decided to resign herself following Honcharuk’s ouster, and there are reports that the current Minister for the Occupied Territories, Oksana Koliada, will also be leaving.

Replying to a question by Hromadske on the reasoning behind the personnel change, our source responded that these were “Strong people, normal ones. Not children.”

/By Maxim Kamenev, Pavlo Kalashnyk, Maria Romanenko, and Romeo Kokriatski