The move is not completely unexpected, several omens pointed to such a thing, points out Bálint Somkuti, security policy expert, military historian, and researcher at the MCC Geopolitics Workshop.
On Sunday evening, a few minutes after nine o'clock Hungarian time, Ukrainska Pravda announced that President Zelensky had initiated the recall of Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznykov from the Verkhovna Rada, i.e. the Ukrainian parliament. At the same time, he proposed his successor in the person of Rustem Umerov, the current head of the Ukrainian State Asset Management.
According to the justification, in the 550-day ongoing war, "the ministry needs a new approach and other forms of cooperation with the armed forces and society as a whole." Finally, Zelensky added: "I expect that the parliament will support the candidate. Autumn is a time of strengthening.”
The news in itself is not surprising, since there have been rumors about Reznykov's departure for quite some time, and at the end of August the person concerned himself stated that he had discussed with the president the possibility of transferring to another position, but the decision depends on Zelensky himself.
Well, that decision has now been made. It is not yet known where Reznykov will continue. According to the news, he will be ambassador to London, this important position has been vacant since July 23 this year.
We can only try to infer what happened behind the scenes, about the processes taking place in (rightly) closed systems using the methods of Cold War Kremlinology. From rumours, decisions and personal exchanges. The first point worth considering is an article published in Politico at the beginning of August. Although the article discusses the situation after a possible Russian assassination of President Zelensky, we have seen strange deaths not only in Russia.
According to the portal, an assassination attempt against the Ukrainian president would rather cause uncertainty among the allies, and not in Ukraine.
In any case, according to the Ukrainian constitution, in the event of the president's death, the speaker of the parliament would take his place. Interestingly, the expert of the Atlantic Council mentioned in the article notes that instead of the rather unpopular politician, they would rather see a collective leadership, with the active participation of presidential office manager Andriy Jermak, foreign minister Dmitro Kuleba and defense minister Oleksiy Reznykov.
The question is how the above formula will change with the departure of the latter minister, who has reigned since the beginning of the war.
The second aspect is the ever-recurring issue of corruption.
The Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau are fighting an ever-increasing battle with the military and civilian secret services over the problem that pervades the country, and against each other.
Recently, for example, all (!) recruitment office managers were fired due to corruption. However, in a country completely permeated by bribery, this is much more just an obvious reason than an actual attempt to deal with the situation. Based on the above, it is possible that the CIA intervened, since according to the news, a significant part of the transferred weapons and military equipment does not even reach the front.
The third aspect is that the position of ambassador to Great Britain, considered the main European supporter of Ukraine, urgently needed someone who could inform the British about the situation first hand. In this case, the previous position of the successor is (also) interesting.
And finally, there is also some chance that the Minister of Defense became a victim of the "successes" of the announced and then repeatedly postponed offensive.
But let's not fool ourselves, knowing how the Ukrainian leadership has worked so far, this has the smallest chance!
In any case, it remains to be seen what kind of wind has brought about what kind of change. As in so many cases, we have to wait until we see the complete (more) picture. Whatever Zelensky's statement about the fall strengthening means.
