Ukraine to replace defence minister, says Zelensky ally

Ukraine is set to replace defence minister Oleksii Reznikov with the chief of its military spy agency, a close ally of President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday, in a reshuffle at the forefront of Ukraine’s war campaign.

Reznikov would be transferred to another ministerial job and replaced by Kyrylo Budanov, head of the GUR military intelligence agency, said David Arakhamia, a senior legislator and chief of Servant of the People parliamentary bloc.

“War dictates changes in personnel policy,” Arakhamia said on the Telegram messaging app.

He said that Ukraine’s “force” agencies — such as the defence ministry — should not be headed by politicians, but by career defence or security officials.

Arakhamia did not say when the move would be formalised. There was no immediate comment from Reznikov.

Asked at a news conference about media reports of his possible exit from the ministry, the defence minister told reporters that any decision was up to Zelensky.

Reznikov became defence minister in November 2021, just a few months before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24 2022.

During the war he fostered relationships with Western defence officials and helped oversee the receipt of billions of dollars of military assistance — including rocket launchers and tanks — to help Kyiv fend off the Russian invasion.

As a wartime defence minister, Reznikov singled out Ukraine’s “de facto” integration into the Nato military alliance as a priority, even if joining the bloc was not immediately possible de jure. Russia’s other neighbours, Finland and Sweden, have applied to join Nato.

During his tenure as defence minister, he spoke out strongly about wartime corruption, which he said was akin to “marauding”.

But in recent weeks his own defence ministry became embroiled in a corruption scandal over an army food contract that envisaged paying vastly inflated prices.

One of his deputy ministers has been fired and named a suspect in the scandal, and another one has since resigned separately.

At Sunday’s news conference, Reznikov also said Ukraine expects a major Russian offensive this month.

Kyiv has the reserves to hold back another Russia push even though the latest Western military supplies will not all arrive in time, he said.

Russia could launch the new attack for “symbolic” reasons around the first anniversary of its invasion, but its resources are not ready from a military point of view, Reznikov said.

“Despite everything, we expect a possible Russian offensive in February. This is only from the point of view of symbolism; it’s not logical from a military view. Because not all of their resources are ready. But they’re doing it anyway,” he said.

Russian forces have been making incremental advances in the east as Moscow tries to capture the embattled city of Bakhmut and revive its faltering invasion after a string of battlefield setbacks in the second half of last year.

Reznikov said the offensive would likely be launched in the east — where Russia is trying to capture all the heavily industrialised Donbas region — or the south where it wants to widen its land corridor to the occupied peninsula of Crimea. He estimated that Russia had 12,000 troops in Belarusian military bases, a number that would not be enough to launch a significant attack from Belarus into Ukraine’s north, reopening a new front.

The US, Europe and other Western governments have pledged billions of dollars in new military assistance including tanks and infantry fighting vehicles to help Ukraine withstand a new attack as well as to help Kyiv launch a counteroffensive.

“Not all of the Western weaponry will arrive in time. But we are ready. We have created our resources and reserves, which we are able to deploy and with which we are able to hold back the attack.”

Reuters