Rustem Umerov voted in as new Minister of Defense
Rustem Umyerov (Photo: Facebook)

The Verkhovna Rada appointed a new Minister of Defense to replace Oleksii Reznikov – the former head of the State Property Fund Rustem Umerov.

The appointment of Umerov as the Minister of Defense was supported by 338 MPs.

At the meeting on Monday, the Rada dismissed Umerov from the post of chairman of the State Property Fund.

On Tuesday, the Ukrainian legislature voted to dismiss Oleksii Reznikov from the position of Minister of Defense. The official also reported to the parliament about his work in office.

REFERENCE. Rustem Umerov is an MP of the 9th convocation from the Golos party, who had been the head of the State Property Fund since September 2022. Before that, he was the deputy head of the Permanent Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

Umerov was a member of the Ukrainian delegation at the negotiations with the Russian Federation at the beginning of the large-scale invasion in 2022, and participated in the process of exchanging prisoners.

He is a co-founder of the ASTEM company and the ASTEM Foundation. The company manages investments in the fields of communications, information technology and infrastructure.

The politician has Crimean Tatar roots, his family was forcibly deported from Crimea by the Soviet authorities in 1944. As of 2019, Umyerov was an advisor to Mustafa Dzhemilev and a delegate to Kurultai, the Crimean Tatar national assembly.

On Sunday, in an evening video message, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the decision to replace the Minister of Defense.

On August 31, three sources told LIGA.net that the president is considering appointing Reznikov as Ukraine's ambassador to Britain.