Ukraine’s parliament has approved Naftogaz chief executive Serhiy Koretsky as prime minister, as protesters gathered in Kyiv and other cities against President Volodymyr Zelensky’s decision to drop his defence minister.
Some 289 of the 450 members of the Verkhovna Rada voted on July 16 to confirm Koretsky, who had been nominated by Zelensky the previous day.
He replaced Yulia Svyrydenko, who held the post for a year. Parliament accepted her resignation on July 14, a step that under Ukrainian law brought down the entire Cabinet.
The reshuffle was left unfinished. Parliament did not vote on a defence minister, leaving the wartime government’s most sensitive portfolio vacant.
Interior minister Ihor Klymenko had been widely expected to take it. Servant of the People MP Mariia Mezentseva said the governing faction would hold further consultations after Klymenko turned down the job, RBC-Ukraine reported.
Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk agreed to open talks between parliamentary factions and Zelensky on the candidacy once the prime minister had been appointed.
The vacancy followed the removal of Mykhailo Fedorov, a 35-year-old technology entrepreneur and former digital transformation minister who had run the ministry for six months.
Fedorov confirmed his departure on Telegram late on July 15. “It was a great honour to serve the Ukrainian people as defence minister,” he wrote.
More than a thousand people rallied in central Kyiv, chanting “Shame!” and waving Ukrainian and European Union flags, Reuters reported. Demonstrations were also held in Lviv, Odesa, Dnipro and Kharkiv.
The protests recalled those of July last year, when public pressure forced Zelensky to reverse a law stripping Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies of their independence.
Fedorov was credited with accelerating drone production, cutting red tape and persuading SpaceX to deny Russian forces the use of Starlink. Supporters said his attempts to clean up defence procurement had angered entrenched interests.
Lawmakers said Zelensky had justified the removal by citing a rift between the defence ministry and the military leadership under commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky.
Koretsky has led Naftogaz since May 2025 and previously ran the state oil firms Ukrnafta and Ukrtatnafta after they were taken from oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky.
Zelensky said he was the candidate best prepared to ready the country for winter, when Russian strikes on the energy grid intensify.
Koretsky said his first task would be to equip Ukraine’s defence forces fully and expand its arms industry.
Zelensky has governed under martial law since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, with wartime elections barred. It is his fourth reorganisation of government since the war began and the second in a year, and it has left him facing his sharpest public backlash since the anti-corruption revolt.
