The Verkhovna Rada voted for the appointment of Yevgeny Khmara as Minister of Defense of Ukraine. This decision was supported by 312 deputies.

The factions voted as follows:.

“Servant of the People” - 193 “for”;

“European Solidarity” – 16 “for”;

“Batkivshchyna” – 16 “for”;

“Platform for life and peace” - 18 “for”;

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“Renewal of Ukraine” – 12 “for”;

“For Maybutne” - 13 “for”;

“Dovira” – 15 “for”;

non-factional – 18 “for”.

President Vladimir Zelensky was not present at the appointment of Khmara. The candidacy was presented to the president in parliament by Galina Mikhailyuk.

Evgeniy Khmara was a serviceman with the rank of general and former head of the Special Operations Center " However, according to current Ukrainian legislation, the Minister of Defense and his deputies must be civilians. Only during the period of martial law, military personnel can be appointed to the position of first deputy head of the Ministry of Defense. To be appointed he was dismissed from service.

" Dismissed in accordance with the Law of Ukraine “On Military Duty and Military Service”, Art.. 26 – dismissal from military service for carrying out organizational activities for senior officers,” Khmara said during a speech in the Rada.

According to Khmara, his three main priorities in the position are:.

front and strengthening of troops;

People;

development of the defense industry.

According to media reports, at first Khmara refused to do this on principle, but the president’s office was able to convince him. True, at first he refused to do this on principle, but the president’s office was able to convince him. Although the head of the Servant of the People faction, David Arakhamia, as the UP wrote, tried to promote legislative changes that would allow a military man to head the department, but in the end this idea was abandoned.

Khmara became and. the head of the Ministry of Defense two hours after the former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Igor Klimenko refused this position. As Inna Vedernikova wrote in the article “Degeneration of Power. How Zelensky reached his ceiling, and the public administration system reached the bottom,” he took the administrative chair of the head of the Ministry of Defense, finding himself in a management system completely unfamiliar to him. But Khmara himself seemed to believe that military experience automatically translated into the ability to lead the Ministry of Defense. Now imagine Reznikov, Umerov or even Fedorov attaching a mine to a Russian warship. Reverse castling should be assessed in approximately the same way..

Let us note that Ukraine remained without a full-fledged defense minister for a whole month.. In particular, the government of Yulia Sviridenko was dismissed on July 14.

The new government of Sergei Koretsky was voted in a day later, but the president then did not present candidates for the positions of Minister of Defense and Minister of Foreign Affairs, as required by law. And the Verkhovna Rada generally went on a month-long “vacation”.

At the same time, due to Zelensky’s decision not to reappoint Mikhail Fedorov to the post of minister, protests broke out in the country with calls to replace the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and return Fedorov to his position. At the same time, the president fulfilled only the first demand of society.