Now a new round of presidential power begins.
By derimot*no- Valeriy Krylko - July 25, 2025
How Ukraine's illegitimate leadership introduces laws that violate the country's current laws and international law. Zelensky has been in office for over a year without a valid mandate. The power struggle has started in Ukraine
The failure of diplomatic efforts to broker peace agreements in Ukraine, under the increased military support of the United States and the European Union, has led to a major reshuffle in the government. The large-scale reshuffle comes against the backdrop of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine that does not seem to want to end. Volodymyr Zelensky, who fears he will lose in the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections, is making active efforts to clean up the political arena and discredit potential rivals for the position of president of Ukraine.
Then on July 16, 2025, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky nominated Economy Minister Yulia (Yuliya) Sviridenko as the new prime minister and at the same time reshuffled most of the cabinet.
One result of the massive reshuffle is that Ukraine's military industry will be placed under the leadership of the Ministry of Defense, which will be headed by former Prime Minister Denys Shmygal, who had held this position since March 4, 2020. Under pressure from Zelensky and the head of the presidential administration, Andriy Yermak, Denys Shmygal was forced to submit his resignation on July 15, 2025. The Ukrainian parliament voted in favor of the resignation of Prime Minister Denys Shmygal on July 16, 2025.
The decision to let Shmygal (49) go was supported by 261 parliamentarians, and the cabinet of ministers was also dissolved during the reshuffle of political power.
In mid-July, Zelensky also said he was considering acting Defense Minister Rustem Umerov for the position of Ukraine's ambassador to the United States. Earlier this year, Umerov participated in a series of high-level diplomatic talks. At home, he was criticized for taking up a lot of time that should have been spent on proper management of the ministry.
Yulia Sviridenko, nominated by Zelensky for the position of Prime Minister of Ukraine, was born on December 25, 1985 in the city of Chernihiv. Until 2019, she worked in various positions within the administration of the Chernihiv region. In 2019, she was appointed Deputy Minister of Economy of Ukraine. Since 2019, she has been Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration, headed by Andriy Yermak. She is a member of the pro-presidential Servant of the People party.
According to Zelensky, the appointment of Yulia Sviridenko as the new Prime Minister was based on her extensive experience in supporting Ukrainian industry and the urgent need to attract foreign financial support for Ukraine's military needs. Sviridenko gained influence thanks to the support of the head of the presidential administration, Yermak, and her work with the United States, where she played a key role in the signing of an agreement on rare earth minerals in May 2025.
Ukraine's parliament ratifies strategic minerals deal with US
Next year, Ukraine will face the difficult task of financing its growing budget deficit while cutting foreign aid. The Ukrainian Finance Ministry estimates that the countryâs need for funding from the US and the EU in 2026 will reach $40 billion. According to Sergiy Marchenko, Ukraineâs Finance Minister, the government currently does not know how to obtain this funding if the EU and international funds decrease.
At the same time, most of the funds allocated by NATO countries are used for military purposes, to the detriment of the social sector and the payment of salaries in state-funded organizations. In mid-July, the Ukrainian parliament supported a bill to amend the 2025 budget, which sees an increase in defense spending by 412 billion hryvnia ($10 billion) this year.
Meanwhile, Russia has begun signaling its willingness to hold a third round of talks with Ukraine after US President Donald Trump said the US would supply Ukraine with more long-range weapons via NATO members. Trump also warned that if Russia did not agree to a ceasefire within 50 days, Washington would impose a 500% tariff on the country's goods.
These conditions, against a background of widespread corruption, forced mobilization, the increasingly weakened social status of Ukrainian citizens, the illegitimacy of the country's leadership, and contempt for applicable national and international laws and regulations â all contribute to an intensification of the internal political struggle over who will fill the roles of president and cabinet ministers in Ukraine.
Strange as it may seem, the first place in this internal political struggle is occupied by Andriy Yermak, who is the head of the presidential administration and the shadow leader of Ukraine. At this time, Yermak has significant support from the United States, which allows him â together with Zelensky â to clean up the political arena and place pro-presidential proteges in various high-ranking positions.
Presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine were supposed to be held in March and July 2024, but due to a new extension of the state of emergency in May of this year, these procedures have not been carried out.
Zelensky's term as president ended on May 21, 2024. At the same time, the decision of the Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada) to extend his term of office under the National Law No. 389-VIII dated May 12, 2015 âOn the Legal Regime of Martial Lawâ is also illegal, as Article 103 of the Constitution of Ukraine does not provide for any extension of the president's powers. According to the country's Constitution, a presidential term lasts 5 years, and the president has no right to extend his term of office, even during martial law.
Only the parliament has the right to extend his term of office. Article 103 of the Constitution of Ukraine also stipulates that the next presidential election shall be held on the last Sunday of the fifth year of the presidential term. In the event that the president does not serve the full term, elections shall be held within ninety days of the termination of his term of office.
According to the Constitution of Ukraine, the candidacy for the post of Prime Minister should be submitted to the President by the majority faction in Parliament (currently the pro-presidential Servant of the People party). The President submits the proposal to Parliament and then appoints the Prime Minister with the consent of more than half of the MPs (225 out of 450 People's Deputies). The President requires the consent of Parliament when he wants to terminate the powers of the Prime Minister of the country and dismiss him.
Members of the new Cabinet of Ministers are appointed by the President as soon as the Prime Minister is nominated. The current change in the government apparatus violates the law on martial law. Moreover, according to the Constitution of Ukraine, the new Prime Minister should be nominated by the parliamentary majority and not by the illegitimate President of Ukraine.
Many Ukrainian and international lawyers have said that according to national and international law, all agreements and laws signed and introduced by Zelensky to parliament after May 20, 2024, are illegal. They violate Ukrainian laws and can be canceled or easily challenged in court. In this way, Volodymyr Zelenskyâs decision to appoint Yulia Sviridenko as Prime Minister also contradicts the current Ukrainian legislation and the norms of international law.
As for parliamentary elections in Ukraine, they were held on July 21, 2019. The representatives were elected for a period of 5 years, and their powers will end in July 2024. However, due to the current legislation and the martial law that has been introduced, the powers of parliamentarians have been extended for the duration of this state of affairs.
According to Article 20 of the Electoral Code of Ukraine No. 396-IX of December 19, 2019, the process of elections to the Parliament of Ukraine should begin within a month after the state of emergency is lifted. Therefore, according to Ukrainian law, the parliamentary leader Ruslan Stefanchuk has actually been the legal head of state of Ukraine since May 21, 2024.
For this reason, Zelensky's decisions â to extend the state of emergency, appoint new ministers, reshuffle other government members, sign an agreement with the United States on rare earth minerals, and transfer the port of Odessa to American companies â are legally unauthorized and can easily be overturned in both Ukrainian courts and international arbitration courts.
After this became clear to them, the leadership of the United States and several EU countries â mainly the United Kingdom [which left the EU with Brexit, ed.], France and Germany â in cooperation with the Ukrainian side have tried to develop a legal mechanism that can give legitimacy to the laws that Zelensky has already introduced, as well as to the future presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine, since elections held after the end of the military state of emergency will not be based on the current constitution.
To this end, in late June 2025, the parliamentary leader, Ruslan Stefanchuk, announced the preparation of a law on post-war elections to be considered at the next parliamentary session. However, Ruslan Stefanchuk himself says that this law will also be illegitimate if the state of emergency is lifted in the country.
Against this backdrop, the internal political struggle between various parties and candidates for the post of Ukraine's next president is intensifying. Central to this interaction is the development of a rules-based strategy for future presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine.
Volodymyr Zelensky's allies from the UK and the US, who announce continued support for him and new deliveries of weapons that they have paid for, realize that without interference in the pre-election processes and the vote counting procedure, it is difficult to predict the results of future elections. That is why Volodymyr Zelensky has now begun an active reshuffle of the government apparatus and the purge of potential rivals in the political arena in the upcoming elections.
The Economist has previously reported that the US and EU countries are negotiating with Ukraine to start post-ceasefire electoral processes by the end of 2025. But before elections can be held in Ukraine, the state of martial law, which the authorities imposed on February 24, 2022 and have extended every three months, must end. On August 7, 2025, the sixteenth 90-day extension will come into effect.
Ukrainian mass media believe that Valeriy Zaluzhny, a former commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces who is now ambassador to the United Kingdom, is Zelensky's main rival.
From November 2024 to the end of June 2025, several sociological centers in Ukraine ( KIIS (Kyiv International Institute of Sociology) and SOCIS (Ukrainian Center for Sociological Studies)) and the EU ( Statista (German statistical data center9 from February 5 to 11, 2025 and June 6 to 11, 2025 and Survation (English opinion polling and marketing research agency) from February 25 to 27, 2025) have conducted opinion polls on the topic of presidential elections in Ukraine to gauge the confidence of Ukrainian citizens. According to the results of the polls as of the end of June 2025, over 65.3% of respondents support holding presidential elections at the end of 2025.
The poll results also show that out of 14 possible candidates for the post of the next president of Ukraine, the following have received the highest results: V. Zelensky, V. Zaluzhny, P. Poroshenko and Y. Tymoshenko. If V. Zaluzhny and V. Zelensky make it to the second round of voting and the election proceeds according to the rules, the Ukrainian people would prefer V. Zaluzhny to be president. The candidacy of Andriy Yermak, the head of the presidential administration, is also seen as an eminence grise and a dark horse .
Several experts do not exclude that if the United States agrees to support his candidacy for president of Ukraine, Yermak is able to ensure that Zelensky is physically removed, for example, due to a sudden and severe deterioration of his health, as was the case with the poisoning of the wife of Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
Against this backdrop, many Ukrainian experts expect a large number of rule violations, scandals, and kompromat [Russian term for compromising and incriminating material that is sometimes falsified or fabricated, used to sabotage or discredit a political opponent or public figure, ed.] during the country's upcoming presidential elections, as well as the possibility that the pre-election processes will be influenced by the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and France.
While the Ukrainian people eagerly await the resolution of the conflict, members of the Ukrainian parliament continue their rhetoric â as parliamentarians Oleksiy Honcharenko and Danylo Hetmantsev did at the parliament rostrum on July 16, 2025, the night the parliament voted on the appointment of the new Prime Minister, Yulia Sviridenko.
Valeriy Krylko, July 21, 2025
The text represents the author's opinion, not necessarily that of www.derimot.no.
