The Verkhovna Rada dismissed the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov, who has been in office since 2021. This was stated by the deputy of the country’s parliament Yaroslav Zheleznyak on Tuesday, September 5.

In his Telegram channel, he said that 327 deputies voted for this decision, and four voted against. Zheleznyak said that the selection of a candidate for the post of head of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry will take place on September 6.

In addition, the chairman of the State Property Fund, Rustem Umerov, was relieved of his duties. The Verkhovna Rada will also consider his candidacy for the post of Minister of Defense of the country on September 6, the deputy specified.

On September 3, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky announced his intention to release Reznikov from the post of head of the defense department. He proposed Umerv for this post. Zelensky also said that the ministry needs new approaches and other formats of interaction with the military and society.

On September 4, the head of the Crimean parliament, Vladimir Konstantinov, expressed the opinion that the resignation of the Ukrainian defense minister was connected with the failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive. According to him, this replacement will not have any effect on the general situation at the front.

On that day, Der Spiegel magazine wrote that Reznikov was dismissed due to corruption scandals related to the country’s army. The author of the article, Christian Ash, noted that the ex-minister allowed an increase in the budget for the army to 20% of GDP, while the state leadership did not want this.

At the same time, Reuters suggested that Reznikov’s resignation took place against the background of the fight against corruption in Ukraine.

Military expert, ex-member of the UN commission Igor Nikulin specified to Izvestia that Zelensky decided to change the defense minister in order to get in touch with Turkey and win her over to his side. He pointed out that Umerov is a Crimean Tatar with nationalist views who advocates the full autonomy of the Crimean Tatar state with subordination to the Turkish side.