UPDATE - Major shakeup to Zelenskyy's government as 5 ministers step down

ADDS DETAILS, CHANGES HEADLINE, LEDE AND DECK

By Elena Teslova

MOSCOW (AA) – In a major shakeup to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's government, five Cabinet members, including two deputy prime ministers and a minister responsible for domestic arms production, as well as a senior official, stepped down on Tuesday for reasons that have yet to be determined.

Zelenskyy also fired his deputy chief of staff, Rostislav Shurma, who had been in the position since 2021, according to a decree published on the presidential website.

The resignations of Cabinet members have been received by the Ukrainian parliament, Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk said in a statement on Telegram.

Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanishyna, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories Iryna Vereshchuk, Strategic Industries Minister Alexander Kamyshin, Justice Minister Denis Malyuska, and Environment Protection and Natural Resources Minister Ruslan Strelets have all resigned.

Vitaly Koval, the head of the State Property Fund, has also stepped down, the speaker added.

All the resignations would be presented at the next plenary session, he said.

Before becoming deputy prime minister, Olha Stefanishyna held several other positions. She served as director general of the Secretariat's Government Office for the Coordination of European and Euro-Atlantic Integration from 2017 to 2019, after which she worked in the private sector until her appointment as deputy prime minister in June 2020.

Vereshchuk is a former lawmaker who represented the government at the Verkhovna Rada in 2019.

Malyuska assumed the post on Aug. 29, 2019, and is a member of the presidential Servant of the People party.

Kamyshin took office in March 2023 and was chairman of the board of Ukrainian Railways before that.

Strelets has been the minister of environmental protection and natural resources since April 2022.