Europe | Politics in Ukraine

As his popularity fades Volodymyr Zelensky culls his cabinet 

He has reshuffled his team and concentrated power

Foreign Minister of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba
Photograph: Getty Images
|KYIV

ON WEDNESDAY UKRAINE’S parliament convened to approve an unexpected wave of resignations. It was the start of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s first major wartime shake-up, a merry-go-round of promotions and dispatches to irrelevance. The president had wanted a quick show to bamboozle his way to the headlines. The result, which saw even members of his own party mocking the proceedings, and three of the seven votes failing, hinted at increasing dysfunction within the government.

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