Ukraine’s parliament votes on the afternoon of 14 July to dismiss Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko, while the Washington ambassadorship offered as her exit remains unaccepted.
As of that morning, Svyrydenko was not considering the role for herself, three sources told Suspilne. Hours earlier, the Rada’s state-building committee backed her resignation—16 votes in favor, four abstentions. Whether she has refused outright is not known.
Sources in the President’s Office linked her exit to the need to replace Ukraine’s ambassador in the US.
The Washington posting is the official rationale for the change. Sources in the President’s Office linked her exit to the need to replace Ukraine’s ambassador in the US—a role, they said, that requires an exceptionally strong figure as Kyiv works through the Patriot production license.
If the premier does not take the job, Ukraine’s second wartime change of prime minister rests on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s broader case: that the Cabinet needs renewal.
What Svyrydenko told parliament
Speaking to the committee before its vote, Svyrydenko said the president had made clear that the Cabinet needed to be renewed and certain policy directions strengthened, naming social and education policy as areas that could be run more effectively, Suspilne reported.
Government sources told Suspilne the president is satisfied with her work.
In her departure statement, Svyrydenko wrote on Telegram that she had discussed with the president the changes needed to strengthen the government’s work and relations with international partners, thanked her Cabinet, and said she is ready to continue serving the state and working toward a just peace.
Neither she nor Zelenskyy has publicly named a precise reason for the change. Government sources told Suspilne the president is satisfied with her work and has no complaints.
Who governs next
The likeliest candidate for the premiership is Serhii Koretskyi, head of state energy company Naftogaz, three sources in the President’s Office and the government told Suspilne. Koretskyi turned loss-making Ukrnafta profitable after 2022 and steered Naftogaz through the past winter.
Suspilne reported that Zelenskyy wanted an energy-sector figure in place before the next heating season amid Russian attacks. If parliament approves the dismissal, the Cabinet serves in an acting capacity, likely under First Vice Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, until a new government is voted in.
A year, minus three days
Zelenskyy proposed Svyrydenko for premiership exactly one year before the dismissal vote, on 14 July 2025; she took office three days later. Her year in charge spanned the attempt to strip Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies of independence and the largest protests of the full-scale war, which reversed it.
It also saw the Midas corruption case that toppled the head of the President’s Office, the opening of Ukraine’s first EU accession negotiating cluster, and a €90 billion ($104.4 billion) EU loan. The sixth cluster opens in Brussels on the day parliament votes on her dismissal.
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