Overview
- The appointment requires a vote in the Verkhovna Rada, and Zelensky said he expects lawmakers to support it.
- Shmyhal has led the Defense Ministry for less than six months after being appointed in July 2025.
- He previously served as Ukraine’s longest-serving prime minister from 2020 to 2025.
- From 2017 to 2019 he held a senior role at DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, and he has denied ties to owner Rinat Akhmetov.
- The Energy Ministry has been vacant since Svitlana Hrynchuk’s Nov. 19 dismissal in a corruption scandal that also removed the justice minister.