Since taking office on May 20, President Volodymyr Zelensky has replaced many top people in state offices.
Zelensky’s administration says it wants to reform and dismantle the corrupt and deeply inefficient bureaucratic system of its predecessors and build better governance, increase living standards and support the rule of law.
Are they up to that challenge? If Zelensky’s appointments are any measure, that remains an open question.
So far, the president’s appointees have seen a mixed reception. On the one hand, Zelensky has selected reformist officials for some of the top jobs. On the other, he has also appointed some people with controversial or obscure backgrounds.
And many other appointments may have to wait: Zelensky currently lacks a majority in parliament and may only be able to select a prosecutor general, other top officials and a Cabinet after the July 21 snap parliamentary election.
The Kyiv Post looks at Zelensky’s most important appointees — the popular, the controversial, and the innocuous.
Foreign intelligence
One of the most controversial appointments was that of Vladyslav Bukharev as head of the Foreign Intelligence Service on June 11.
Bukharev worked at the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) from 1992 to 2007, headed the tax police from 2007 to 2010, and took the helm of the SBU’s anti-corruption unit in 2014.
The tax police had the reputation of a notoriously corrupt agency. It was liquidated in 2017.
Bukharev told the Censor.net news site that he has known Zelensky for more than 10 years.
Vladyslav Bukharev, the head of Foreign Intelligence Service since June 11, 2019. (Facebook/Vladyslav Bukharev)
Before his appointment, Bukharev was also a lawmaker from ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna party. The former prime minister, who competed with Zelensky in the presidential election, has been supporting the new president’s agenda.
Bukharev received a medal from Russia’s Federal Security Service in 2004. He said he got it for participating in an international operation to stop drug trafficking from the Latin American countries to Europe.
Bukharev said he had never worn the medal and threw it out after Russia launched its war against Ukraine in 2014.
Security service
Ivan Bakanov, the acting head of the SBU since June 3, has also come under fire.
Bakanov is a former lawyer and director of Zelensky’s entertainment company Kvartal 95. He has never been in public service.
After he was appointed, anti-corruption activists and media asked to see Bakanov’s asset declaration.
It wasn’t just about Bakanov. The declarations of SBU employees have been an important subject for a while: While all public officials have to publish detailed annual declarations, the Security Service employees were exempted from it. The official reason has been to protect them. But many see it as an attempt to conceal ill-gotten wealth.
Ivan Bakanov, the Acting Deputy Chief of Ukraine’s SBU Security Service speaks during a briefing on June 3, 2019, in Kyiv. (Volodymyr Petrov)
So Bakanov was asked to volunteer his declaration almost as a symbolic gesture, to set the example and show his intention to clear SBU of corruption. He refused to do it, citing the law and security concerns for other SBU employees.
Bakanov said, however, that he intended to publish his declaration eventually.
Bakanov’s wife Oksana Bakanova has also become a target of criticism because she is a Russian citizen. However, Bakanov says that she supports Ukraine and is currently in the process of receiving Ukrainian citizenship.
Meanwhile, Anatoly Kalyuzhnyak has been appointed as a deputy head of the SBU’s anti-corruption unit, SBU spokeswoman Olena Hitlianska told the Slidsvto.info investigative journalism agency on June 28.
Kalyuzhnyak was a deputy head of the SBU’s anti-corruption unit in 2010 to 2013 and head of the SBU’s Inspectorate General in 2013 to 2014. He has no right to hold any state jobs under the 2014 lustration law, which applies to those who were heads and deputy heads of SBU units under ex-President Viktor Yanukovych.
Kalyuzhnyak also signed a Jan. 18, 2014 plan by the SBU to counteract EuroMaidan protesters.
The wealth of Kalyuzhnyak, who has always worked as a state official, has also raised questions. His family own three apartments in a high-end Kyiv complex with an estimated total value of $500,000, a 250 square meter mansion in Kmelnitsky Oblast, an Audi Q8 car worth up to $200,000 and a Range Rover worth about $50,000, according to Slidtsvo.info.
The SBU and Zelensky’s spokeswoman Iuliia Mendel did not respond to requests for comment on the issue.
As part of his efforts to reshuffle the discredited SBU, Zelensky has also fired seven heads of the SBU’s regional branches and all of the agency’s deputy heads.
Administration
Zelensky’s head of the administration, Andriy Bohdan, has been his most criticized appointment. Zelensky made him chief of staff on May 21.
Bohdan used to work as a lawyer for oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, a notorious oligarch and Zelensky’s business partner, which spurred speculations that Bohdan was a frontman for Kolomoisky on the new president’s team. Bohdan, Zelensky, and other top members of the administration denied it.
It wasn’t the only issue with Bohdan. His appointment violated the country’s lustration law, which forbids top Yanukovych-era officials from holding public office. From 2010 to 2014, Bohdan was the anti-corruption ombudsman in then-Prime Minister Mykola Azarov’s Cabinet under Yanukovych. However, Bohdan claims his appointment is legal.
Another official subject to lustration in the administration is Bohdan’s chief of staff Oleksiy Dniprov. He had served at Poroshenko’s administration and Zelensky kept him.
Dniprov falls under the lustration law because he was a deputy education minister and the ministry’s chief of staff in 2013-2015, according to the Justice Ministry’s lustration department. Deputy ministers fall under the lustration law.
Poroshenko’s administration argued that a “combined deputy minister and chief of staff” is not a deputy minister, so Dniprov isn’t subject to lustration.
In an apparent effort to save Bohdan and Dniprov from lustration, Zelensky on June 20 replaced the Presidential Administration with the Presidential Office and on June 25 appointed Bohdan and Dniprov to the Presidential Office. The lustration law specifically mentions the employees of the “Presidential Administration.”
Zelensky’s critics, including Tetiana Kozachenko, ex-head of the Justice Ministry’s lustration unit, say this does not change anything because the lustration ban applies to all state jobs, including the Presidential Office.
Zelensky’s press office declined to comment on the issue.
Andriy Bohdan, a lawyer and adviser to new President Zelenskiy talks with journalists during a news conference in front of the Presidential Administration headquarters in Kyiv on May 21, 2019. (Volodymyr Petrov)
National Guard, Border Guard
On June 14, Zelensky appointed Mykola Balan as head of the National Guard.
From 2010 to 2014, Balan led the Crimean branch of the Interior Ministry’s troops. In 2014, he became a deputy head of the National Guard. On May 7, Poroshenko appointed him as the National Guard’s acting head.
On June 13, Zelensky appointed Serhiy Deineko to lead the Border Guard. He has held various positions within the agency since 1996.
In June 2014, Deineko’s border guards fought Russian proxies in Luhansk Oblast.
Deineko also used to be a supporter of reformist lawmaker Viktor Chumak’s Khvylia (Wave) group, and then joined Tymoshenko’s “war cabinet” in the run-up to her 2019 presidential campaign.
On June 11, Zelensky also fired 15 regional governors appointed by Poroshenko. However, it is still not clear who will replace them.
Defense & Security Council
Several high-profile anti-corruption experts have praised another one of Zelensky’s appointees: Oleksandr Danylyuk as secretary of the National Security and Defense Council.
Then-Finance Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk speaks at the Kyiv Post CEO breakfast on May 23, 2017. (Oleg Petrasiuk)
Danylyuk served as deputy chief of staff for Poroshenko in 2015-2016 and finance minister from 2016 to 2018. On May 28, Zelensky appointed Danylyuk to the Security and Defense Council.
Danylyuk has the reputation of a reformer and has established close contacts with Ukraine’s foreign partners.
Defense procurement
On June 12, Zelensky appointed another reformer, ex-Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius, to sit on state defense firm Ukroboronprom’s board of directors.
“Abromavicius understands the problems of the defense sector and intends to destroy and change (the corrupt system),” said Oleksandr Lemenov, an anti-corruption expert with the Reanimation Package of Reforms watchdog. “Whether he’ll succeed, I don’t know.”
He also said that Abromavicius had announced his intentions to push the alleged interests of Poroshenko, Poroshenko ally Oleh Gladkovsky and lawmaker Serhiy Pashynsky out of the defense industry. They have been accused of profiteering from defense procurement, but deny the allegations.
Foreign policy
Zelensky also appointed Vadym Prystaiko as a deputy chief of staff on May 22 and submitted his candidacy for foreign minister to the Verkhovna Rada on June 11. The parliament has yet to review it.
Prystaiko has been described by experts as a professional with a good reputation. A career diplomat since 1994, he worked as deputy foreign minister from 2014 until 2017, when he became Ukraine’s representative to NATO.
Prior to that, Prystaiko served as the Ukrainian ambassador to Canada from 2012 to 2014.
Prystaiko’s appointment placated some critics of Zelensky’s stance on Russia; the diplomat is seen as a staunch supporter of Ukraine’s integration with NATO and the European Union.
Anti-corruption policy
Zelensky’s May 21 appointment of Ruslan Riaboshapka to the role of chief of staff in charge of anti-corruption policy has also received plaudits.
Aivaras Abromavičius (Volodymyr Petrov)
“Riaboshapka is one of the strongest anti-corruption experts,” anti-corruption expert Lemenov said. “He drafted anti-corruption legislation and has not been spoiled by power.”
Riaboshapka was a top official in the National Agency for Preventing Corruption from 2016 to 2017. However, he resigned after criticizing the agency’s failure to combat corruption and check asset declarations.
On June 14, Riaboshapka also announced plans to re-launch what he described as Poroshenko’s botched judicial reform and efforts to cleanse the judiciary.
Other reformist appointees include Andriy Gerus and Anastasia Krasnosilska. Zelensky appointed Gerus, an energy expert, to be his representative in the Cabinet on May 22. Krasnosilska, a former expert at the Anti-Corruption Action Center, became a member of Ukraine’s delegation to the Group of States Against Corruption on June 10 and is running for the Rada on the list of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and Andriy Gerus during Zelensky’s presidential campaign. Zelensky appointed Gerus to the position of the presidential representative in the Cabinet of Ministers on May 22. (Facebook/Andriy Gerus)
Some people with reformist credentials were also appointed on June 25 to the National Anti-Corruption Policy Council. These include Riaboshapka, Krasnosilska, ex-Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaly Kasko, Customs Service Chief Maksym Nefyodov, legal scholar Mykola Khavronyuk, lawmaker Viktor Chumak and anti-corruption activist Vitaly Shabunin.
Some of the controversial people appointed to the council include State Investigation Bureau Chief Roman Truba and Chief Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytsky. Truba is accused of having been appointed as a result of a rigged selection process, and Kholodnytsky is accused of sabotaging high-profile graft cases, and both deny the accusations.
Judicial appointments
Zelensky’s stance on judicial reform has drawn criticism.
On June 10, Zelensky canceled former President Petro Poroshenko’s appointment of Mykhailo Isakov and Andriiy Vasylenko to the High Council of Justice, the judiciary’s main governing body that vets judges, and scheduled a new competition for the jobs.
Deputy Chief of Staff Riaboshapka argued that the two men’s appointment was illegal because there had been no genuine competition for the jobs. In April, the Kyiv Administrative District Court banned Poroshenko from appointing them because competition procedures had been violated.
However, a commission appointed by Chief of Staff Bohdan to select new members of the council includes the same old guard that served there under Poroshenko.
“Zelensky seems to be trying to establish control over the judiciary in the same way as his predecessor Poroshenko with the help of the same people,” Mykhailo Zhernakov, head of the DEJURE Foundation legal think-tank, said on Facebook. “Otherwise I can’t explain what’s happening with the selection of the High Council of Justice members.”
The members of the competition commission include Mykola Onyshchuk and Olga Poedinok, who were also members of the commission under Poroshenko, Zhernakov noted.
Another member of the competition commission is Oleksandr Paseniuk, head of the High Administrative Court from 2004 to 2011. Paseniuk was appointed as a Constitutional Court judge in 2011 by parliament, which was then dominated by ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions. He is also the uncle of Poroshenko’s personal banker, Makar Paseniuk.
Yuriy Voloshin, who was also appointed as a member of the competition commission, sparked controversy because he drafted a ruling that lawyers Pavlo Grechkivsky and Oleksiy Malovatsky could be elected to the High Council of Justice for a second time in February, despite the constitutional ban on such an appointment.
Responding to the accusations, Iryna Venedyktova, who is responsible for judicial reform on Zelensky’s team, said that “professional self-regulating bodies and civil society will be engaged in the development of law enforcement policy.”
Venedyktova said that judges, anti-corruption agencies, prosecutors, the Justice Ministry, lawyers, law schools and notaries “must work concertedly for one result – the rule of law.” “The High Council of Justice will be replaced taking into account this strategy.”
