KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, one of Ukraine’s most recognizable faces on the international stage, submitted his resignation Wednesday ahead of an expected major government reshuffle. Russian strikes, meanwhile, killed at least seven people in the Ukrainian city of Lviv near the Polish border, a day after one of the deadliest missile attacks since the war began.
Kuleba, 43, didn’t give a reason for stepping down. His resignation will be discussed by lawmakers at their next session, parliamentary Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk said on his Facebook page. Four other Cabinet ministers tendered their resignations late Tuesday, making the Cabinet reshuffle likely the biggest since Russia’s February 2022 invasion.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy indicated last week that a reshuffle was imminent, with the war poised to enter a critical stage and as its 1,000-day mark looms in November.
Zelensky needs to keep up Ukraine’s morale amid the grinding war of attrition with its bigger neighbor and steel the country’s resolve for what will be another hard winter. Russia has been smashing Ukraine’s power grid, knocking out some 70% of generation capacity and rupturing heat and water supplies.
The Ukrainian army’s risky but largely successful incursion almost a month ago into Russia’s Kursk border region countered months of grim news from the front line in eastern Ukraine.
Kursk is not a priority, however, for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who remains bent on pushing his army deeper into eastern Ukraine. Russia’s onslaught in Donetsk, where Ukraine is short of troops and air defenses, and long-range missile strikes that repeatedly hit civilian areas of Ukraine signal that Putin will remain uncompromising and unrelenting in his efforts to crush Ukrainian resistance.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said late Tuesday that Putin believes Russia “can slowly and indefinitely subsume Ukraine through grinding advances and that Russia can achieve its goals through a war of attrition against Ukrainian forces and by outlasting Western support” for Kyiv.
Zelensky is also keeping in mind the U.S. presidential election in November, which could bring a shift in key U.S. military support for his country.
During the war Kuleba has been second only to Zelenskyy in carrying Ukraine’s message and needs to an international audience, whether through social media posts or meetings with foreign dignitaries. In July, Kuleba became the highest-ranking Ukrainian official to visit China since Russia’s invasion. He has been foreign minister since March 2020.
Kuleba’s successor is not yet known but is expected to be announced on Thursday. Several Ukrainian media outlets, citing unnamed sources, said Kuleba’s deputy, Andrii Sybiha, would become the country’s chief diplomat.
The new foreign minister will likely accompany Zelenskyy to the U.N. General Assembly in New York next week, which is an opportunity to lobby global leaders for their support.
More than half the current Cabinet will undergo changes, said Davyd Arakhamiia, a leader of Zelenskyy’s party in the Ukrainian parliament. Ministers will be resigning on Wednesday and new appointments will be made Thursday, he said.
Zelenskyy’s five-year mandate expired in May. He remains in power under the provisions of martial law.
Russian attacks, meanwhile, killed at least seven people and wounded 35 others in an overnight strike on Lviv, Mayor Andrii Sadovyi said. A child and a medical worker were among the dead and others are in critical condition, he said.
Lviv is about 60 kilometers (40 miles) from the border with Poland, a NATO and European Union member and one of Ukraine’s most vocal supporters.
An overnight strike also wounded five people in Kryvyi Rih, Zelenskyy’s hometown, regional head Serhii Lysak said.
Kuleba said the attacks showed Ukraine’s need for more Western support. “To put an end to this terror, Ukraine’s partners must promptly deliver the promised air defense systems and ammunition, as well as strengthen Ukraine’s defense capabilities and allow us to launch long-range strikes on all legitimate military targets in Russia,” he wrote on X.
Zelenskyy reacted to the attacks by urging Ukraine’s allies to give Kyiv “more range” to use Western weapons to strike deeper into Russian territory.
The attack happened a day after two ballistic missiles blasted a military academy and nearby hospital in Poltava in eastern-central Ukraine, killing 53 people and wounding almost 300 others, Ukrainian officials said.
The missiles tore into the heart of the Poltava Military Institute of Communication’s main building, causing several stories to collapse.
Poltava is about 350 kilometers (200 miles) southeast of Kyiv, on the main highway and rail route between Kyiv and Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, which is close to the Russian border.
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Burrows reported from London.
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