KIEV, October 7. /TASS/. The Ukrainian parliament, Verkhovna Rada, has voted its speaker Dmitry Razumkov out of office. The decision was approved by a 284 majority vote.

The ruling party, Servant of the People, failed to provide on its own the required minimum of 226 votes in support of the resignation of a former member of its team. Only 215 members of the pro-presidential party voted for Razumkov's dismissal. Legislators from the Yulia Timoshenko-led Batkivshchina party, groups of legislators Trust and For the Future and some other parliament members helped achieve the needed majority.

After the voting Razumkov left the presidium and then the conference hall.

The procedure of ousting the Ukrainian parliamentary speaker was launched on Tuesday. President Vladimir Zelensky explained the legislators wished to replace the speaker in the light of disagreements between Razumkov and the party over the law on oligarchs and the sanction policies. Razumkov said he would not quit politics even if he was dismissed as the speaker of parliament.

On Tuesday, the legislators barred him from chairing sessions for two days "for breaking the rules of procedure." Later, the Verkhovna Rada decided to consider Razumkov's resignation on October 7. The speaker promised that he would not protest his dismissal in a court of law, although in his opinion the procedure violated parliamentary rules. At the same time he warned he would go to court, should there be an attempt to strip him of his parliamentary seat.

During Vladimir Zelensky's presidential election campaign in 2019 Razumkov was one of his closest aides and led the list of the Servant of the People party. Razumkov quit the parliamentary faction after being appointed the speaker of parliament. Under the rules of procedure, the Ukrainian parliamentary speaker must be a non-partisan figure. The first deputy chief of the Servant of the People faction, Alexander Korniyenko, has already declared his intention to find out if the withdrawal from the faction was a reason enough for the party's congress to strip Razumkov of his MP mandate.