In his nightly address on Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Cabinet of Ministers will hold a meeting on Monday at the presidential offices on Bankova Street in which more changes in Ukraine’s leadership will be announced.
“A meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine is being prepared for tomorrow. It is important that the changes continue. Today, we also worked thoroughly on the security track. The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine will undergo changes, and we discussed the relevant directions for these changes with the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Ihor Klymenko,” he said.
Zelensky added that he had spoken with Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko about the re-organization. He also noted that the heads of the Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, Ternopil and Chernivtsi Regional Administrations are expected to be appointed next week.
On Saturday, Zelensky said that ongoing staff changes in the government and presidential administration are rotations, not dismissals, as Kyiv prepares for both intensified diplomacy and the possibility of a prolonged war.
“There are no dismissals. These are rotation steps,” Zelensky told reporters during a briefing in Kyiv, responding to questions about potential changes in the defense and security leadership.
Zelensky then confirmed major changes within the Office of the President aimed at strengthening Ukraine’s negotiating capacity. He acknowledged that the head of HUR, Ukraine’s military defense intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, became head of the Office of the President on Jan.2, while Serhii Kyslytsia, currently first deputy foreign minister, will be dismissed from that post and appointed first deputy head of the presidential office.
There were a flurry of such government reshuffles in 2025, as several officials were embroiled in a corruption scandal linked to the country’s power grid operator, as well as diplomatic changes to adapt to the tenor of discussions with the administration of US President Donald Trump.
In his nightly address, Zelensky also reiterated that, this coming week, meetings will take place in Europe to discuss the latest steps toward peace discussed with Trump, where the two leaders said they are “95 percent” of he way towards a deal. The final five percent centers around the “thorny issues” of occupied territory, Trump said.
“We are already preparing for the next diplomatic week as well – there will be meetings in Europe that must become yet another contribution to our defense and to hastening the end of the war,” Zelensky said.
National security advisers from Ukraine, European countries, and allied partners from the so-called Coalition of the Willing reached a multilateral framework agreement on security guarantees for Ukraine on Saturday, a plan that envisions Europeans deployed in Ukraine.
The president will meet with the leaders of Coalition of the Willing member states in France on Tuesday.
“Ukraine will be prepared for both possible paths ahead – diplomacy, which we are pursuing, or continued active defense if the pressure from our partners on Russia proves insufficient<” Zelensky said in his address. “Ukraine seeks peace. But Ukraine will not give up its strength to anyone.”