- During Tuesday’s session, members of
the Rada backed Shmigal’s dismissal with 265 votes, comfortably
exceeding the 226-vote threshold required for approval.
- Lawmakers also voted to confirm the dismissal of Minister of Digital Transformation Mikhail Fedorov, a close ally of Zelensky.
Zelensky recently nominated Shmigal to head the Energy Ministry and proposed
Fedorov as the new defense minister. However, the parliament failed to
confirm either appointment, with the nominations falling six and ten
votes short of the required majority, respectively.
A repeat vote is
expected on Wednesday
Ukraine has been without an energy minister
since November, when Svetlana Grinchuk resigned after a major
embezzlement scandal at the state-owned nuclear power company
Energoatom, which relies heavily on Western financial support.
According to Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies, Zelensky’s longtime
business partner Timur Mindich ran a $100 million kickback scheme in the
energy sector. The revelations led not only to Grinchuk’s departure,
but also to the removal of Justice Minister German Galushchenko and
Zelensky’s powerful chief of staff Andrey Yermak.
In recent weeks,
Ukrainian investigators have reported uncovering another corruption
scheme involving an alleged vote-selling network inside the Rada. One of
the main suspects, MP Yury Kisel, is reportedly linked to Sergey
Shefir, a co-founder of Zelensky’s comedy studio who served as his chief
of staff during the 2019 presidential election.
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