Ukraine’s new defense minister, Oleksiy Reznikov
By Joe Lindsley
In the last days of October, the Washington Post and other global media began to report that satellite images show a new Russian military build-up near Ukraine, with some 90,000 troops on the border, according to Kyiv. But initially, under then-Defense Minister Andriy Taran, Ukraine denied the report. Days later, citing health concerns, Taran resigned.
In his stead, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has now chosen Lviv-born lawyer Oleksiy Reznikov as his replacement. Previously, Reznikov had resigned this week, with little explanation, as Minister for Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories, a position that deals with the lands of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. The former is occupied and controlled by Russia and the latter two are occupied by Russian-backed forces.
Zelenskiy has named Iyrna Vereshuk as the next minister for reintegration.
Ukraine’s new Minister for Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories, Iyrna Vereshuk
«The cost of temporary occupation must constantly increase,» Reznikov, told Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, which has now approved both personnel decisions.
Map of Ukraine. Credit: Atsd, CC BY-SA 4.0
Speaking to the Rada, Zelenskiy said that the new minister of defense, who is a lawyer, enjoys authority in the military.
The seeming Russian troop build-up this past week echoes events last March and April that caused anxiety in the West and in Ukraine. But despite heightened alert and fears, the summer proceeded uneventfully.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Ukraine in mid-October and met with his counterpart, Taran, and with President Zelenskiy.
In the United States such changes of department/ministerial leadership require much more vetting and politicking: the Senate must confirm the president’s nominations, often after multiple hearings at the committee-level before an all-Senate vote.
Also: 4 November is the 56th anniversary of the end of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, when Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest.
About Ukraine’s new defense minister
A native of Lviv, 55-year-old Oleksiy Reznikov was the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for the Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine from 4 March 2020 to 3 November 2021. He graduated from Lviv National University named after Ivan Franko with a degree in law. He began his legal career in Lviv, then moved to Kyiv and in 2000 founded the company «Pravis», which was later renamed «Reznikov, Vlasenko and Partners», then – Magisters.
He was deputy Head of the Kyiv City Administration (from April 2016 to September 2018) and Deputy Mayor – Secretary of the Kyiv City Council (from June 2014 to December 2015). Since 19 September 2019, he has been representative of Ukraine in the working subgroup on political issues of the Tripartite Contact Group, through which Ukraine, Russia, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe seek peaceful solutions to the strife caused by Russian-backed occupation in eastern Ukraine.
About Iryna Vereshchuk, new minister for temporarily occupied territories
Iryna Vereshchuk graduated from the Military Institute of Lviv Polytechnic National University with a degree in international information, as well as from Ivan Franko Lviv National University with a jurisprudence degree.
In 2010, she was the director of the Zhovkva Region European Development Agency and the deputy head of the Zhovkva Regional State Administration. In 2007-2008 she worked as a lawyer in the Rava-Ruska City Council. Prior to that, she served for 5 years as an officer in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In 2010, she was elected Rava-Ruska mayor (Lviv region) from the Strong Ukraine party.
She has been Professor of the Department of General and Applied Psychology of the Institute of Ecology, Economics, and Law and since 2017, Associate Professor of Political Science at the National Pedagogical Dragomanova University.
In 2019, she was elected a People’s Deputy of the ninth convocation from the party «Servant of the People,» President Zelenskiy’s party, named for the comedy TV show in which he played a fictional president before he became actual president.
In July 2020, Vereshchuk became a candidate for the post of Kyiv mayor from the Servant of the People party. In the October 25 election, 5.44% of Kyiv residents voted for her. She took fifth place in the number of votes.
By Joe Lindsley (follow on Instagram or LinkedIn)
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