Cabinet Relieves Deputy Defense Ministers Rusnak And Haiduk, Appoints Pavliuk As First Deputy Minister

The Cabinet of Ministers has dismissed Ivan Rusnak as First Deputy Minister of Defense, Oleh Haiduk as Deputy Minister of Defense and appointed Oleksandr Pavliuk as First Deputy Minister of Defense.

The representative of the Cabinet of Ministers in the Verkhovna Rada Taras Melnychuk announced this on the Telegram channel, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"Appointed: Pavliuk Oleksandr Oleksiiovych as First Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine," he wrote.

Rusnak was dismissed from the post of First Deputy Minister of Defense, Haiduk - from the post of Deputy Minister of Defense for Digital Development, Digital Transformation and Digitalization.

Rusnak has held the aforementioned position since September 2014.

Haiduk has been Deputy Minister of Defense since December 2021.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov submitted to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for approval the candidacies of three new Deputy Ministers of Defense: ex-commander of the Joint Forces Operation, Lieutenant General Oleksandr Pavliuk, former Ambassador of Ukraine to Canada Andrii Shevchenko, and volunteer and journalist Vitalii Deineha.

Pavliuk, 52, was head of the Kyiv Regional Military Administration in March-May 2022, and commander of the Joint Forces Operation from July 2021 to March 2022.

Reznikov also said that Rusnak and Haiduk remain in the Ministry's team and will be involved in work as advisers to the minister.

Zelenskyy by his decree allowed for the period of martial law to appoint a military to the post of First Deputy Minister of Defense, although the law On National Security prohibits this.