Ukraine appoints new prime minister in major government reshuffle
Yulia Svyrydenko, 39, took over as prime minister from Denys Shmyhal, who had held the post since 2020, following her confirmation on Thursday by Ukraine's parliament.
Svyrydenko previously served as first deputy prime minister and minister of economic development and trade, roles that brought her in close contact with the administration of United States President Donald Trump. She was credited with negotiating a critical mineral deal between Washington and Kyiv earlier this year that helped thaw an initially frosty relationship between Trump and Zelenskyy.
Svyrydenko said on social media that she intends to focus on expanding Ukraine's domestic weapons production and the strength of its armed forces, and supporting the economy.
'Our Government sets its course toward a Ukraine that stands firm on its own foundations — military, economic, and social,' she said. 'My key goal is real, positive results that every Ukrainian will feel in daily life. War leaves no room for delay. We must act swiftly and decisively,' she said.
It is a great honor for me to lead the Government of Ukraine today.
Our Government sets its course toward a Ukraine that stands firm on its own foundations — military, economic, and social. My key goal is real, positive results that every Ukrainian will feel in daily life.
War… pic.twitter.com/oytWMCp1S3
— Yulia Svyrydenko (@Svyrydenko_Y) July 17, 2025
Outgoing Prime Minister Shmyhal, 49, will step in as defence minister, taking over a ministry that has struggled with a series of corruption scandals.
Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, 50, will stay in place, but Zelenskyy has named outgoing Justice Minister Olga Stefanishyna, 39, as his next ambassador to the US, pending US approval. Stefanishyna has experience working with the European Union and NATO and also played a role in negotiating the recent mineral deal with the Trump administration.
Stefanishyna will replace outgoing envoy Oksana Markarova, who earned the ire of Trump due to her positive working relationship with the administration of former US President Joe Biden.
Reports last week indicated that Zelenskyy was planning to choose Defence Minister Rustem Umerov as his next US envoy, but he was allegedly not approved by Washington, according to opposition MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak.
Other reshuffles will see deputies Oleksiy Sobolev and Taras Kachka take over as the minister of economy, environment and agriculture and deputy prime minister for European integration.
Despite the shake-up in positions, critics say the new faces in Zelenskyy's cabinet remain largely the same. They have also accused the Ukrainian leader of consolidating power by stacking key government posts with his 'loyalists'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Jazeera
5 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Eastern Europe must earn its security in a post-American NATO
From the Baltic states to the Black Sea, Central and Eastern European (CEE) governments remain anxious about their security in the face of Russian aggression. Despite NATO's enduring pledge to Article 5, many officials in countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Romania continue to express concern over a potential US shift in focus towards Asia‑Pacific and the Middle East, creating fears of weakening American vigilance in Europe. This anxiety has heightened in light of Russia's steady military rebuilding and escalating hybrid threats targeting critical infrastructure across the region. To be clear, President Trump has long criticised NATO members for failing to hit defence spending targets and has even suggested the US might withhold protection from countries that do not meet the 2 percent of GDP target. In response, the June 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague marked a turning point: all member states agreed to raise combined defence and related spending to 5 percent of GDP by 2035, including 3.5 percent for core military capabilities and 1.5 percent for broader security measures such as logistics, cyber resilience and support for Ukraine, which was viewed as an 'ironclad' commitment to NATO Article 5 and a pledge of continued backing for Ukraine. For all the robust signalling, however, the agreement's gradual timeline – 2035, with a review in 2029 – and its flexible accounting, where spending on Ukraine aid, infrastructure upgrades and cyber projects all count, leave the Eastern flank states uneasy because timely implementation will be essential for credibly deterring Russia. Moreover, tensions over US-EU burden sharing remain, as shown recently when, during a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Trump announced that the US would send Patriot air defence systems to Europe 'for Ukraine' but insisted that European allies foot the bill by donating the interceptor missiles themselves. The breakdown in diplomatic decorum with European partners has been on display for a while, notably during the March Signalgate incident in which Trump's Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth called Europe 'pathetic' and suggested European NATO states were 'freeloading', and during the infamous February diplomatic debacle when Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was publicly humiliated during a joint White House news conference with Trump. Yet despite the turbulence, CEE capitals cannot afford the luxury of disengagement from the second Trump administration. Indeed, the volatility reinforces the need for these states to remain actively engaged and push for better outcomes. This is for several reasons. First, the US military presence has long served as the cornerstone of regional deterrence against Russian expansionism. Even as Washington's commitment to European security appears uncertain, CEE's security architecture has been fundamentally anchored in US guarantees since the end of the Cold War. The traumatic historical experience of Western abandonment during critical 20th-century junctures, such as the 1938 Munich Agreement, when Czechoslovakia was handed over to Nazi Germany by Western powers, has left a deep-seated awareness that diplomatic decoupling from Washington often correlates with heightened vulnerability along NATO's eastern flank. This is why Poland and the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) have for years hosted US troops and air defence systems, alongside NATO battlegroups. NATO's eastern flank countries have routinely cautioned that if Putin succeeds in Ukraine, 'they are next.' This concern is particularly acute in light of the Trump administration's active push to broker a flash ceasefire deal between Russia and Ukraine, reportedly involving territorial concessions to Moscow. President Trump has made clear he wants to be remembered as 'a peacemaker and unifier', a theme he emphasised again in his second inaugural address. His advisers have floated frameworks that would freeze the conflict along current front lines, potentially recognise Russian control over Crimea and parts of Donbas, and block Ukraine's NATO aspirations. But Ukrainians are not seeking peace at any price, nor should the Europeans. Any deal that cedes Ukrainian territory or is seen as legitimising Russian aggression risks emboldening the Kremlin, weakening NATO's credibility and undermining Europe's long-term security architecture. Since Russia's 2022 full-scale incursion, the Kremlin has repeatedly tested NATO's Article 5 resolve through various provocations along the eastern flank, including airspace violations and missile incidents. For example, in February 2024, Estonia was subjected to electronic warfare from Russian territory that disrupted GPS signals across its eastern border regions, affecting both civilian infrastructure and military communications systems. One month later, a Russian cruise missile entered Polish airspace for 39 seconds before returning to Ukrainian territory. Moreover, in August 2023, Russian fighter jets conducted aggressive intercepts of NATO surveillance aircraft over the Baltic Sea, coming within dangerous proximity and executing unpredictable manoeuvres that risked mid-air collisions. Such a status quo can deteriorate quickly should Putin's aggression, under a Trump-brokered deal, enable Russia to carve out a piece of Ukraine or achieve troop disengagement from Eastern Europe. Russia may also continue its military buildup after the war stops, buying time for later aggressions and compounding the challenge for CEE and Europe. Against this backdrop, CEE leaders would do well to pursue a dual-track strategy, despite the volatility of current US foreign policy. First, the region's engineering workforce and industrial might have an outsized role to play in rearming Europe in the face of US disengagement and Europe's stepped-up defence pledges, particularly in partnership with Germany. In Germany, this shift of actively repurposing idle civilian manufacturing facilities into military production hubs is already firmly under way. Its defence firms have been actively converting shuttered or underperforming automotive facilities, such as those in Berlin and Neuss, and rail plants in Gorlitz, to produce Leopard tanks, Puma IFVs and artillery systems, into hybrid military production hubs. This industrial push is enabled by Germany's domestic reforms, notably Berlin approving a sweeping defence procurement law that simplifies contracting, raises tender thresholds and fast-tracks construction for military infrastructure. Such deliberate reallocating of resources from beleaguered civilian industries toward military industrial output holds clear implications for allied production networks in CEE. In addition, CEE countries have been ramping up their own heavy manufacturing capacity, with Poland and Slovakia stepping up joint production of artillery and armoured vehicles, and Czechia's Czechoslovak Group surging to the forefront of Europe's munitions supply chain, with a 4-billion-euro ($4.6bn) revenue spike and an 11-billion-euro ($12.7bn) order book anchored in Ukraine bound exports. The CEE region, with its faltering car manufacturing competitiveness now worsened by Trump car tariffs, needs to latch onto this opportunity to tackle both its security and economic imperatives. In doing so, it can benefit from the 800-billion-euro ($921.8bn) defence mobilisation plan, coupled with its proposal for 150 billion euros ($172.8bn) in EU-backed loans, approved in Brussels on March 6. Second, hedging against US security disengagement through the combination of strategic industrial repositioning and European solidarity must be complemented by persistent efforts to secure better outcomes through diplomatic channels with Washington. This remains necessary even as ideological alignment frays, because transactional partnerships can still deliver meaningful security benefits. To that end, the region can leverage some of its unique strategic assets, including Poland's substantial arms purchases from US manufacturers, Romania's critical Black Sea security infrastructure and the Baltic states' sophisticated cybersecurity capabilities, with an administration that prizes transactional diplomacy. The path forward requires setting aside both illusions and grievances at a time when security guarantees must be earned rather than assumed. In this emerging reality, Eastern European nations can meaningfully partake in rearming Europe while demonstrating their value as partners, as they navigate the shifting fault lines of post-American Europe. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
Al Jazeera
a day ago
- Al Jazeera
Inmates, pregnant woman among 27 killed in Russia's attacks on Ukraine
At least 27 people, including 16 inmates and a pregnant woman, have been killed in Russian air attacks on mostly southeastern Ukraine, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and regional officials. The attacks came overnight on Tuesday, a day after United States President Donald Trump set Russia a new deadline of '10 or 12 days' to reach a peace deal in its war on Ukraine or face tough new sanctions, shortening a 50-day deadline he had set earlier this month. Ivan Fedorov, head of the military administration in Zaporizhia, on Tuesday said Russia carried out eight overnight air attacks on his region alone, hitting a prison near the city of Zaporizhzhia. 'Russia bombed a penal colony near Zaporizhzhia overnight – 16 killed, 35 injured. Civilians continue to suffer. Another blatant war crime,' Fedorov said in English on X. Zelenskyy said a pregnant woman was among three people killed in a Russian missile attack on the city of Kamianske in the central region of Dnipropetrovsk, targeting a hospital. Yesterday, very important words were spoken by President Trump about how the Russian leadership is wasting the world's time by talking about peace while simultaneously killing people. We all want genuine peace – dignified and lasting: Ukraine, all of Europe, the United States,… — Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 29, 2025 Also in Dnipropetrovsk, a person was killed and several wounded in the Synelnykove district, according to Serhiy Lysak, head of the Dnipropetrovsk military administration. In a separate attack on the village of Velyka Mykhailivka in the Odesa region on Monday night, a '75-year-old woman was killed. A 68-year-old man was wounded. A private house was damaged,' Lysak said on Telegram. Russian forces also struck a grocery store in a village in the northeastern Kharkiv region, police was cited as saying by the AP news agency, killing five and wounding three civilians. Authorities in the southern Kherson region reported one civilian killed and three wounded over the past 24 hours, the AP report said. Reacting to the developments, Andriy Yermak, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, wrote on social media: 'Russian President [Vladimir] Putin's regime, which also issues threats against the United States through some of its mouthpieces, must face economic and military blows that strip it of the capacity to wage war.' Ukraine's Air Force said Russia had launched 37 drones and two missiles overnight, adding that its air defence systems had downed 32 of the drones. In Russia's southern Rostov region, multiple Ukrainian drone attacks killed one person, according to Russian authorities. Russia's Ministry of Defence, which reports only how many drones were destroyed, not how many Ukraine launched, said its defence units downed a total of 74 drones overnight, including 22 over the Rostov region. 'A car was damaged on Ostrovsky Street. Unfortunately, the driver who was in it died,' Yury Slyusar, acting governor of the Rostov region, said in a post on Telegram. He said the attack had targeted several places, including Salsk, Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, Volgodonsk, Bokovsky, Tarasovsky and Slyusar. Drone debris also fell on Salsk train station, damaging a freight train and passenger train, with passengers being evacuated, Slyusar added. Power was disrupted at the station, forcing the suspension of train traffic, Russia's Railways said on Telegram. No casualties were reported. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine, which has often said its attacks inside Russia are in response to Moscow's relentless strikes on Ukraine. Both sides deny targeting civilians in their attacks, but thousands of civilians have been killed in the conflict, the majority of them Ukrainian. Kyiv has been trying to repel Russia's summer offensive, which has made new advances into areas on the eastern front line largely spared since the start of the 2022 offensive. Over the weekend, the Russian army said its forces had captured the settlement of Maliyevka in Dnipropetrovsk, weeks after it seized the first village in the region – claims Kyiv has contested.
Al Jazeera
a day ago
- Al Jazeera
Poland – At a crossroads of ideologies
Pinch Point Poland is increasingly seen as the gateway between eastern and western Europe. Post-war Poland has enjoyed proper independence now for little more than 35 years. And it wants to keep it that way. But there are external pressures which Poles believe put them under very real threat. Video Duration 04 minutes 56 seconds 04:56 Video Duration 04 minutes 45 seconds 04:45 Video Duration 00 minutes 43 seconds 00:43 Video Duration 05 minutes 59 seconds 05:59 Video Duration 05 minutes 30 seconds 05:30 Video Duration 05 minutes 58 seconds 05:58 Video Duration 05 minutes 27 seconds 05:27
