Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has tendered his resignation, according to the speaker of parliament, amid Kyiv’s most extensive cabinet reshuffle since Russia invaded eastern Ukraine in early 2022.
“The Verkhovna Rada [Ukraine’s parliament] has received a resignation letter from Foreign Minister Kuleba,” Ukrainian Parliament Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk wrote on Facebook on Sept. 4.
Kuleba’s resignation request, he added, “will be considered at one of the [assembly’s] soonest plenary meetings.”
Stefanchuk’s statement on Facebook was accompanied by a photo of what appeared to be the foreign minister’s handwritten letter of resignation.
Kuleba was appointed Kyiv’s top diplomat in 2020. Since then, he has made numerous high-profile trips abroad to drum up support for Ukraine’s war effort.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to soon name Kuleba’s successor, with Andrii Sybiha, Kyiv’s deputy foreign minister, among the frontrunners.
Kuleba’s reported resignation comes amid an ongoing government reshuffle, which saw four cabinet ministers and a deputy prime minister step down from their posts a day earlier.
On Sept. 3, Ukraine’s ministers of justice, environment, reintegration, and strategic industries all tendered their resignations.
On the same day, Olha Stefanishyna, Kyiv’s deputy prime minister for European affairs, also announced her intention to step down.
If the departures are approved by parliament, they will reportedly leave over a third of Ukraine’s cabinet portfolios without ministers.
“It’s a government without ministers … an intellectual and personnel crisis that the authorities are closing their eyes to,” opposition lawmaker Iryna Herashchenko told Reuters.
New appointments will likely be named and approved by the assembly sometime later this week, parliamentary officials said.
According to reports in the Ukrainian press, most—if not all—of the outgoing ministers will be given other government posts.
By Adam Morrow
