Ukraine’s Defense Minister Gets the Boot: What’s Next?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that the corruption-ridden defense ministry was in the need of “new approaches”, as he announced that he would be replacing Reznikov with a former parliamentary deputy Rustem Umerov as the country’s new defense minister.

Reznikov’s term as Ukraine’s top defense official had been marked by widespread corruption claims in the ministry as billions of dollars of western aid flowed to Kiev.

Ukraine’s deputy defense minister and the head of procurement were sacked in January for allegedly inflating costs of food supplies to troops, among other charges against them. Last month, Zelensky also reportedly dismissed regional heads of military recruitment centers for accepting bribes from men who didn’t want to fight.

Significantly, Reznikov’s dismissal also comes against the backdrop of a tanking counteroffensive in the Donbass region.

At a joint press conference with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sochi on Monday, President Vladimir Putin remarked that the Ukrainian so-called counteroffensive hasn’t stalled but “failed”.

No ‘Sensible Changes’ Expected from the new Defense Minister, Ex-Lawmaker Says

Umerov’s appointment as Ukraine’s new defense minister is unlikely to result in make any “substantive, sensible changes” to the corruption-ridden ministry since any reforms would require the nod of its military donors, Volodymyr Oleynyk, a former Rada (Ukraine’s unicameral legislature) lawmaker has told Sputnik.

Oleynyk, who now lives in exile, remarked that the “corruption-ridden Defense Ministry could be expected to continue to chug along”.

The ex-lawmaker reckoned that wealthy Ukrainians with the means to pay out bribes would continue to “buy their way out of the draft”.

“Those who won’t pay a bribe will be caught, sent to the front, and buried… That's the whole scheme. Their own children feel just fine living abroad,” he stated.

Significantly, Oleynyk explained that that the Ukrainian defense minister has “nothing to do with the command and control of troops” anymore.

The political observer pointed out that Kiev had increasingly moved towards a “European model of governance”, in line with its ambitions to launch negotiations for an EU membership in coming months.

Oleynyk noted that the current situation in Ukraine was such that no question related to security personnel could be “solved” without taking the Americans into confidence.

"What program he’ll (the defense minister) adhere to is not yet clear, because the United States has two possible strategic paths. The current one is to continue the conflict to the last Ukrainian. The second is to freeze it. In the near future, we will see based on other personnel changes as to what decisions would finally be made by the US,” the former Rada lawmaker explained.

Oleynyk suggested that the new defense chief, in order to survive in his role, must fulfil certain conditions.

"First, he shouldn’t try to be clever. He must repeat what he is told and do what he's told. This is very important. Second, he must know how to properly divide everything up. And third…he must not steal from his own,” advised the ex-Ukrainian lawmaker.

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5 September 2023, 15:09