Ukraine’s former Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk has become a distinguished fellow of the U.S. think tank Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.
“The Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center is honored to announce that Oleksiy Honcharuk will be joining as our new distinguished fellow,” the organization wrote on Twitter on Sept. 1. “We’re excited to welcome him to the team.”
Honcharuk was the youngest prime minister in Ukrainian history appointed to lead the country’s government at the age of 35 in 2019.
“While in office, Prime Minister Honcharuk focused on carrying out market reforms and began to transform Ukraine’s post-Soviet state apparatus,” Atlantic Council wrote on its website.
Honcharuk said on Twitter that he is honored to join the think tank. As a fellow of Eurasia Center, he will bring his expertise in fiscal and structural reform and political reform.
“I look forward to our fruitful and meaningful cooperation!” he wrote on Twitter on Sept. 1.
Honcharuk was appointed prime minister by the newly formed Ukrainian parliament in August 2019, which was dominated by President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party.
Under Honcharuk, the government made and implemented a number of reform-oriented decisions, including lowering interest rates for small business, restarting privatization and initiating a land reform which will allow farmland to be bought and sold by Ukrainians.
Only half a year later, the once celebrated official by Zelensky was voted out as part of the president’s major reorganization of the Cabinet of Ministers and his office.
Zelensky accused Honcharuk and his government of being timid, living in the Facebook bubble and being out of sync with the rest of the country. A leaked phone call where Honcharuk speaks of Zelensky in a seemingly condescending tone seemed to have influenced the decision too.
Read also: Honcharuk: Zelensky falls for Russian myths
However, Honcharuk believes he was fired for going against various influence groups by cutting corrupt schemes across the Cabinet, its agencies and state companies.
Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center promotes policies that “strengthen stability, democratic values, and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia, and Central Asia in the East.”
