Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has named the acting head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Major General Yevhen Khmara, as acting defence minister, filling the post left empty by the removal of Mykhailo Fedorov.
Zelensky said on July 16 he would ask MPs to confirm Khmara once the necessary legal procedures had been completed. He did not say when the nomination would be submitted.
Ukraine’s 2018 national security law, in force since January 2019, requires the defence minister to be a civilian. Khmara is a serving officer and would have to leave the military before parliament could vote on him.
The Kyiv Post reported that analysts had questioned the legality of installing him as acting minister without a parliamentary vote.
Zelensky pointed to Khmara’s record in technological strike operations, which he described as unusually deep and in many respects without precedent. He said Ukraine’s defence effort should be built around that work, and that he had instructed Khmara to press on with reform of the sector.
Khmara ran the SBU’s Alpha special operations centre, which has been central to Ukraine’s long-range strike campaign against Russia. Zelensky made him acting head of the service in January, replacing Vasyl Maliuk.
The appointment came after a day of protests against the removal of Fedorov, a 35-year-old technology entrepreneur credited with accelerating drone production during six months in office. More than a thousand people rallied in central Kyiv, with further demonstrations in Lviv, Odesa, Dnipro and Kharkiv, Reuters reported.
Interior minister Ihor Klymenko had been the expected choice and turned the job down, Servant of the People MP Mariia Mezentseva said. He left the government altogether, with National Police chief Ivan Vyhivskyi taking the interior portfolio.
Parliament confirmed Naftogaz chief executive Serhiy Koretsky as prime minister by 289 votes on July 16, then approved his cabinet by 264. The defence and foreign ministries were excluded because the President nominates both.
Six ministers kept their jobs, among them first deputy prime minister and energy minister Denys Shmyhal, Ukrinform reported. Ten newcomers joined, including Vsevolod Chentsov, head of Ukraine’s mission to the European Union, as deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration.
The reshuffle is Zelensky’s fourth since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 and his second in a year.
Khmara’s deputy Oleksandr Poklad is expected to take over as acting head of the SBU, the Kyiv Independent reported. The Anti-Corruption Action Centre and other campaigners have accused Poklad of fabricating political cases and of leading the 2025 attack on the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU).
