Ukraine appoints Yevhenii Khmara as defence minister amid political turmoil

Kyiv, Ukraine. Ukrainian lawmakers appointed former special forces operative Yevhenii Khmara as defence minister on Wednesday, hours after his ousted predecessor Mykhailo Fedorov called for elections during the war with Russia. The appointment came amid fresh political pressure on President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

New defence minister

Khmara takes over the defence portfolio after Fedorov was removed from the post in July. Fedorov’s dismissal prompted thousands of people to join rare wartime protests over a reshuffle that critics said was poorly communicated at a critical stage of the war.

Call for elections

In a statement issued late on Tuesday, Fedorov said Ukraine faced a crisis of governance and that its democratic process “cannot be held hostage by Russia”.

“We must find a legal, safe and realistic mechanism that will allow Ukraine to renew its full democratic process even in the conditions of a long war,” he said.

Fedorov did not say whether he would run in any election. A recent poll indicated that Fedorov, described as Zelenskiy’s longest-standing ally, would beat the president in a runoff vote.

Legal and public concerns

Wartime elections are prohibited under Ukrainian law. An August 5 poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that 57 per cent of Ukrainians believe elections should take place only after the war.

The poll cited the presence of hundreds of thousands of troops on the front line and continued Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities, towns and villages.

Lesia Bidochko, a policy fellow at the European Policy Institute in Kyiv, said Fedorov had chosen a “populist trajectory”, highlighting risks and challenges for the democratic process of holding an election.

Corruption investigation

Khmara’s appointment came hours after anti-corruption authorities announced charges against a deputy chief of Zelenskiy’s office in an alleged $3 million money-laundering scheme.