The reason for the dismissal of deputy defense ministers of Ukraine was the fight against corruption. Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Aleksey Goncharenko stated this on September 18.

In his Telegram, he wrote that many are surprised why the dismissals did not happen later, when the new Minister of Defense Rustem Umerov and President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky returned from trips abroad.

“The answer is simple: the dismissal of deputies and the renewal of the Ministry of Defense are carried out specifically for Zelensky’s visit to the United States. Conditionally: there was corruption. We are fighting. Let’s fire. We’re changing it,” Goncharenko is sure.

He also noted that Umerov did not intend to fire almost all of his deputies, but wanted to keep half of them in their positions. However, the office of the President of Ukraine announced the need to create a new team, Goncharenko added.

Earlier that day, the Ukrainian government fired six deputy defense ministers: Vladimir Gavrilov, Vitaly Deinega, Anna Malyar, Rostislav Teodozievich, Denis Sharapov and Andrei Shevchenko, as well as the department’s Secretary of State Konstantin Vashchenko.

On September 3, Zelensky announced that Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov would leave his post and his place would be taken by the chairman of the State Property Fund, Umerov. He explained his decision by saying that the department needs new approaches to interaction with the military and society as a whole. Reznikov himself wrote a letter of resignation the next day.

The head of the Crimean parliament, Vladimir Konstantinov, expressed the opinion on September 4 that the resignation of the Ukrainian Defense Minister was due to the failure of the counter-offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.