MOSCOW, January 13. /TASS/. Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, has postponed the appointment of defense and energy ministers due to problems with collecting votes within the ruling Servant of the People party.

Parliament Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk announced a break in the sitting until Wednesday.

"We’ll break for today and gather tomorrow," he said as broadcast on the Rada TV channel.

The Rada was unable to vote on the appointment of Denis Shmygal as energy minister as Vladimir Zelensky's party, which has a majority in parliament, did not give the necessary number of votes for his appointment. According to Yaroslav Zheleznyak, a deputy from the Golos party, only 153 members of the Servants of the People voted for Shmygal's appointment. In total, the parliamentarians gave 210 votes for his candidacy, with 226 required.

After Shmygal's non-appointment, head of the Servant of the People party faction David Arakhamia proposed changing the agenda and first voting on the appointment of Mikhail Fyodorov as defense minister. However, the vote on this item also failed, gaining only 206 votes out of 226 required. Then all personnel issues were withdrawn from consideration and parliament went on a break until Wednesday.

"So now we have no minister of energy, no minister of defense, no minister of justice, no minister of digital transformation. They could not appoint ministers to the key posts when there is an absolute problem with power outages in our cities, when the situation at the front is difficult," Alexey Goncharenko, a deputy from the European Solidarity party (listed in Russia as terrorist and extremist), said on Telegram.

Problems in Zelensky's party

The plan to appoint Shmygal and Fyodorov to the new positions failed even though it was agreed at a meeting of the Servants of the People faction on Monday evening. Even during the meeting, attended by Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko, it turned out that the party could not gather enough votes to appoint its deputy Denis Maslov to the post of minister of justice although Zelensky proposed putting him at the head of the Ministry of Justice on November 20 last year.

Nevertheless, after the meeting it was planned that on Tuesday the Rada would dismiss Shmygal from the post of minister of defense and appoint him minister of energy and first deputy prime minister. And Fyodorov will be dismissed as first deputy prime minister - minister of digital transformation and appointed head of the Ministry of Defense instead of Shmygal. Dmitry Natalukha, a deputy from the Servant of the People, was also expected to be appointed head of the State Property Fund.

At today's meeting, the Verkhovna Rada was able to vote for the dismissal of Shmygal and Fyodorov. It also dismissed Vasily Malyuk (listed in Russia as a terrorist and extremist) from his post as head of the SBU Security Service. However, it was no longer possible to make appointments.

Goncharenko called the events "a complete mess and Zelensky's failed personnel policy," and also asked if Shmygal, who was dismissed from one position but not appointed to a new one, was exempt from mobilization. According to Goncharenko, the so-called businessman Ilya Pavlyuk's group did not vote for Shmygal's appointment. "This is an unofficial group in the Servants of the People, known for working in the interests of businessman Ilya Pavlyuk. It has about several dozen deputies. They thought it was kind of destroyed, but, you see, it didn't work out," he said on Telegram. According to Ukrainian media, the Pavlyuk group was disbanded in December 2019 due to "underground work" for Ukrainian mogul Rinat Akhmetov.

However, Zheleznyak believes that this interpretation oversimplifies the situation. He notes that the appointment of Shmygal was not supported by "many different people." "Therefore, it's definitely not one group, but a number of very unrelated deputies," he writes on Telegram.

Further plans

According to the deputies, a new attempt to appoint Shmygal and Fyodorov will be made on Wednesday. The beginning of the parliament session is expected at 11:30 a.m. Moscow time.

According to the agenda, deputies will first be asked to vote for the appointment of Fyodorov as minister of defense, then for the extension of martial law and mobilization for another three months. Only after that, a second vote is planned for the appointment of Shmygal as minister of energy and first deputy prime minister, as well as the appointment of Natalukha as head of the State Property Fund.