‘Yulia’s not in it for the money’ Who is Ukraine’s new prime minister? And how was she appointed despite the wartime ban on cabinet dismissals?
Having survived Ukraine’s last cabinet reshuffle in the summer of 2024, Denys Shmyhal stepped down from the role of prime minister last week. With Shmyhal now set to lead the Defense Ministry, taking his place as head of government is Yulia Svyrydenko, who previously served as both first deputy prime minister and economy minister. Often described by Ukrainian media as a close ally of presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak, Svyrydenko is only the second woman in Ukraine’s history to become prime minister. At Meduza’s request, journalist and researcher Konstantin Skorkin explains what Yulia Svyrydenko brings to the table and what to expect from the country’s new cabinet.
Shmyhal’s legacy
After more than five years at the helm, Denys Shmyhal was Ukraine’s longest-serving prime minister. His record-breaking tenure likely reflects not only his professionalism, but also his lack of political ambition. Some media outlets have dubbed him “the most inconspicuous” prime minister in the country’s history.
Shmyhal was one of the few figures from western Ukraine in the central government. Born in the city of Ivano-Frankivsk, he began his career in the Lviv regional government. Starting in 2017, he worked in the western division of DTEK, an energy company owned by oligarch Rinat Akhmetov. Then from 2018 to 2019, he served as director of the DTEK-owned Burshtyn Thermal Power Plant in the Ivano-Frankivsk region.
In August 2019, newly elected President Volodymyr Zelensky appointed Shmyhal as governor of the Ivano-Frankivsk region. Just six months later, in February 2020, Shmyhal was brought into the national government as deputy prime minister for regional development. Following the resignation of Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk’s cabinet in March 2020, Zelensky nominated Shmyhal for the post.
As prime minister, Shmyhal outlasted most of his original cabinet. Only one other long-serving official remains in his post: Digital Transformation Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who oversees Zelensky’s flagship “State in a Smartphone” initiative.
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Shmyhal’s cabinet faced major rises, from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. In the years after the war began, he oversaw efforts to strengthen Ukraine’s defense capabilities and shift the economy to a wartime footing. In 2024, Ukraine tripled its domestic weapons production compared to the previous year — and was producing nearly 10 times more than it had at the start of the invasion.
Still, Shmyhal’s government faced strong criticism, particularly over corruption scandals. One of the most notorious was over a scheme linked to senior Defense Ministry officials involving inflated prices for army food supplies. President Zelensky himself also expressed frustration with Shmyhal’s inability to “generate breakthrough ideas that could transform the country and ensure its survival during wartime.”
Ukrainian media repeatedly predicted Shmyhal’s resignation. In the summer of 2024, for example, journalists reported that the president had “grown tired” of having a prime minister who was dutiful but lacked initiative. Even then, the most likely successor was said to be First Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, widely seen as a protege of presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak. Shmyhal stayed on at the time, reportedly thanks to resistance from David Arakhamia, head of the ruling Servant of the People faction in parliament, who opposed giving Yermak even more influence. But a year later, it was Svyrydenko who ultimately replaced Shmyhal.
Who is Yulia Svyrydenko?
Yulia Svyrydenko, 39, had already built up extensive managerial experience before she joined the government. Her career began in Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region. After earning a degree in economics, she initially worked in the private sector. In 2011, she became head of Chernihiv’s permanent representative office in China, even learning Mandarin so she could communicate with Chinese partners on equal footing.
In 2015, Chernihiv Governor Valeriy Kulich brought her onto his team, first as an advisor and later as head of the regional economic department. While in that role, Svyrydenko helped attract $340 million in direct foreign investment to the region. By 2017, Chernihiv had the fastest growth in foreign investment of any region in Ukraine.
That September, she was appointed first deputy governor, and after Kulich resigned in 2018, she briefly served as acting governor. People who worked with her during her time in the regional administration told Ukrainska Pravda she struck a rare balance between ambition and integrity. “Svyrydenko wasn’t confrontational or corrupt,” one Chernihiv official said. “People always said, ‘Yulia’s not in it for the money.’ Most deputy governors tried to promote their own contractors or companies — but not Yulia.”
Before long, however, then-President Petro Poroshenko appointed a political ally, Oleksandr Mysnyk, as the new governor, and Svyrydenko stepped away from public service for a time. She took a job at a poultry feed company partly owned by her former boss, Kulich.
After Volodymyr Zelensky came to power, newly appointed Economy Minister Tymofiy Mylovanov invited Svyrydenko to join the government. In the fall of 2019, she became his deputy and was tasked with legalizing Ukraine’s gray labor market and bringing private-sector salaries out of the shadows.
“She led that reform from start to finish — from the public awareness campaign to designing a system of fines for noncompliant companies,” her former boss later stated. In the summer of 2020, she stayed on as first deputy under the next economy minister, Ihor Petrashko. According to Ukrainska Pravda, one of her biggest strengths was her ability to clearly communicate the ministry’s position to the president — and to listen carefully to his feedback. Reporters also noted that Svyrydenko was not one to shy away from paperwork.
In spring 2020, she joined an interagency task force on the COVID-19 crisis, overseeing tax-free imports of masks and medicines. It was during that time, according to Ukrainska Pravda, that she caught the attention of the President’s Office. In late 2020, she was appointed deputy chief of staff to Andriy Yermak, where she handled economic issues and liaised with the cabinet and parliament.
A year later, she returned to the government as first deputy prime minister and economy minister — a move widely seen as part of Yermak’s effort to consolidate control over the cabinet. However, Russia’s full-scale invasion soon sidelined political maneuvering for a time.
What Svyrydenko did during the war
In the first year of the full-scale war, Yulia Svyrydenko took on a wide range of responsibilities. She oversaw the relocation program for businesses from active combat zones, worked on employment initiatives for displaced people, led a task force on the government’s sanctions policy, and negotiated with Western countries to toughen sanctions against Russia.
Her efforts were even recognized abroad: in 2023, Time magazine named her to its TIME100 Next list of rising global figures shaping the future. She was featured in the “Leaders” category, with a write-up by former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, who praised Svyrydenko’s courage in the face of Russia’s invasion.
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In its profile of the future prime minister, Ukrainska Pravda highlighted the loyalty and diligence that earned Svyrydenko the trust of President Zelensky and his chief of staff. Journalists noted that while working on the profile, “just about everyone” told them the same story: government aircraft — reserved for the prime minister, deputy prime ministers, and the defense minister — were regularly used by Yermak or First Lady Olena Zelenska for foreign trips, with Svyrydenko on board to provide bureaucratic cover. According to Ukrainska Pravda’s sources, she and Yermak became close during these flights.
Given her growing profile, Svyrydenko’s name on the shortlist for prime minister came as little surprise. The opposition outlet Strana, citing anonymous sources, reported that Yermak is continuing his push to bring the country’s entire power structure under his control. The resignation of Shmyhal — who had tried to balance different factions within the government — marks an important step in that process.
How the President’s Office sidestepped the wartime ban on government dismissals
On July 14, President Volodymyr Zelensky met with Yulia Svyrydenko and asked her to lead the government. Under Ukraine’s martial law, dismissing the Cabinet of Ministers is explicitly prohibited during wartime (as are elections), so the authorities are employing a musical-chairs-style workaround for this shakeup. Under the arrangement, Denys Shmyhal is moving into the role of defense minister, vacating the prime minister’s post for his first deputy. That defense post, in turn, is being vacated by Rustem Umerov.
The reshuffle has sparked strong backlash from the opposition. Volodymyr Aryev, a lawmaker from the opposition party European Solidarity, told reporters that Svyrydenko is “200 percent Yermak’s person.” Yaroslav Zheleznyak, an MP from the Holos party, called her last six years in office “an absolute failure”: “All we got was PR, mindless execution of every populist whim from the President’s Office, and meticulous note-taking about it all.” European Solidarity leader Petro Poroshenko, the former president, once again urged the government to form a broad-based “national unity” coalition, rather than shuffling people around within the old cabinet.
Despite the heated criticism, parliament approved the transition — largely because Servant of the People still holds a single-party majority and enjoys ad hoc support from other groups, including former members of the banned pro-Russian party Opposition Platform — For Life who retained their seats.
A total of 261 lawmakers supported Svyrydenko’s candidacy (226 were needed). Those who voted in favor included 201 of 211 Servant of the People deputies, ex-members of Opposition Platform, and members of the parties Trust and For the Future. Poroshenko’s European Solidarity voted against her appointment. Other opposition groups, such as Holos and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna party, mostly abstained.
Svyrydenko’s proposed cabinet will largely retain members from the previous one. Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, and Digital Transformation Minister Mykhailo Fedorov will all keep their posts (with Fedorov likely to be promoted to first deputy prime minister). Former Prime Minister Shmyhal will become defense minister, and Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko is expected to move to the Justice Ministry.
As part of a streamlining effort, some ministries will be eliminated. For example, the recently established Ministry of National Unity, created to support refugees and internally displaced persons, will be folded into the Social Policy Ministry under Svyrydenko’s plan.
A few key figures will be leaving the cabinet. Defense Minister Rustem Umerov and Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration Olha Stefanishyna are both stepping down. Umerov was initially expected to become ambassador to the United States, but on July 18 he was appointed secretary of the National Security and Defense Council instead. Instead, it’s Stefanishyna who will go to Washington. Zelensky has already named her his special envoy to the U.S. while the formal ambassadorial process is underway.
This new government appears unlikely to make any major breakthroughs. For the most part, the reshuffle appears aimed at finding more efficient roles for existing members of Zelensky’s team.
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Analysis by Konstantin Sorkin