Dmytro Kuleba at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Berlin, Germany, on Tuesday, June 11, 2024.
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Ukraine’s wartime Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has submitted his resignation, Ukrainian Parliament Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk said on Wednesday.
“This application will be considered at one of the nearest plenary sessions,” the National Assembly Chairman added in a Google-translated post on the social media platform Facebook.
Kuleba, 43, took up the post of Ukraine’s foreign minister in March 2020 and has been a staunch figure at the forefront of Kyiv’s overall campaign to win international support in its efforts to counter Ukraine’s ongoing invasion by neighboring Russia since February 2022. He was previously appointed as Ukraine’s permanent representative to the Council of Europe from 2016-2019.
CNBC has reached out to the State Department for comment.
Kuleba’s possible resignation comes after similar steps to resign on Tuesday from a series of Ukrainian ministers reported by state news agency Ukrinformincluding Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories Iryna Vereshchuk, Deputy Prime Minister in charge of European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olga Stefanishyna, Minister of Strategic Industries Oleksandr Kamyshin and Minister of Justice Denys Maliuska.
David Arakhamia, head of the Servant of the People faction in parliament, has heralded a “major and broad government reboot” this week.
“More than 50% of our employees [Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine] will undergo changes,” he said Tuesday in a Google-translated post. parcel on Telegram. “Tomorrow is dismissal day, and the day after tomorrow is appointment day.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signaled that the situation would also change at the highest political levels of Ukraine in a speech on Tuesday night.
“The fall will be extremely important for Ukraine. And our state institutions must be set up in such a way that Ukraine will achieve all the results we need — for all of us. To do this, we need to strengthen a number of areas in the Government — and personnel decisions are already being prepared,” he said, adding that the expected changes in the office will result in “some areas” of Kyiv’s foreign and domestic policy getting “a slightly different emphasis.”
“We need a new level of simultaneous information, cultural and diplomatic work. And a new level of relations with the Ukrainian community around the world. Now is the time to give new strength to the Ukrainian government institutions, and I am grateful to all who will help,” he said.
Zelenskyy did not disclose any names of those fired or appointed at the time.
Mirroring its efforts on the battlefield, Ukraine has waged a diplomatic war on multiple fronts, balancing fragile courtships of international financial and military backing with efforts to improve its domestic corruption record and pursue its goal of joining the European Union.
The potential change in Ukraine’s foreign policy leadership comes just two months before the election of a new leader in key ally Washington. The Joe Biden administration — including Vice President and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris — has so far been steadfast in its support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia, but the long-term support of former President and Republican nominee Donald Trump, who has previously pledged to end the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours, remains unknown.
