Kubrakov’s Resignation. Why Zelenskyy Removed His Former Favorite

The authorities have found a way to remove Oleksandr Kubrakov, Deputy Prime Minister for Reconstruction and Minister for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure of Ukraine, from his post. The Verkhovna Rada today adopted a resolution on the division of the “monster ministry,” which was created specifically for Mr. Kubrakov in 2022, combining the Ministry of Regional Development and the Ministry of Infrastructure.

Moreover, decisions on both the appointment of Kubrakov as deputy prime minister and head of the united ministry, and his dismissal, were made by the Presidential Office without Kubrakov and were not coordinated with him. The sole difference is that the former decision was made against the backdrop of President Zelenskyy’s complete trust in “the one who shoulders everything,” whereas the latter was based on the utter distrust to the one who “shoulders it all wrong.” Moreover, neither President Zelenskyy nor the head of the Presidential Office Yermak personally raised any complaints as to Kubrakov’s work. No honest conversation took place. Dirty posts in Telegram channels were enough for them. However, the ins and outs of this dismissal are worth revealing in order to once again put on record what motives guide those who make government decisions in the midst of war.

Information about Kubrakov’s resignation has been in circulation for several months, but the dismissal is not at all connected with the shelters of the destroyed Trypillia Thermal Power Plant, from which Telegram channels close to the Office of the President began a public campaign to discredit the Deputy Prime Minister. Despite the fact that this facility was not at all included in the list of 22 objects of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Kubrakov’s area of responsibility, from the point of view of ensuring its safety.

There are three reasons that shaped the attitude of the Presidential Office towards Kubrakov as the first candidate for removal from the government.

Firstly, Kubrakov fell out of favor with the president in late July — early August last year, when he received an offer to head the Ministry of Defense instead of Oleksi Reznikov. “His appointment had already been agreed upon with the president, down to the personnel policy at the departmental level. However, Kubrakov wanted to remain Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, whilst also leaving his deputy, Yurii Vaskov, in charge as Minister of Reconstruction in order to maintain control over the projects that had been initiated. To this Zelenskyy and Yermak gave a simple answer: “Since when did you decide that this is yours for the taking? That you can lay claim to anything at all?,” says a ZN.UA source in the Cabinet of Ministers.

Secondly, the trigger for the president was an independent international track record, primarily with the US Embassy, which Kubrakov managed to build. “During the time that Kubrakov headed the united ministry, he managed to become quite strong politically and financially,” a source in the Presidential Office clarifies. “It was the Americans who helped the Deputy Prime Minister fend off the attacks of the Presidential Office and transfer significant grant funds from the public sector to the Ministry of Infrastructure.” After Kubrakov elicited mistrust by “ceasing to be a honey-bearer and no longer filling the common fund of the Presidential Office” in the 2024 budget, his ministry was deprived of the ability to manage reconstruction funding, with this function being transferred to the Ministry of Finance.

Thirdly, this is the story of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, when Oleksandr Kubrakov and Mustafa Nayem, Head of the Agency for Restoration and Infrastructure Development, became whistleblowers, revealing information that they were offered bribes for assistance in obtaining contracts and land. As a result, two people's deputies — Andrii Odarchenko and Serhii Labaziuk — received notices of suspicion. “The president was indignant because he already has extremely difficult relations with the parliamentary faction. The MPs are no longer paid, they stopped listening, and now, to make matters worse, the authorities cannot provide cover where it is necessary. As a result, there are dozens of applications to leave MP seats altogether,” a source in the presidential faction thinks.

However, with all this in mind, it is important to understand that before the president accumulated personal irritation towards ex-favorite Kubrakov and decided to dismiss him, there were no differences in strategy between the ministry and the Presidential Office.

“In fact, we simply witnessed global competition between two fragments of the presidential project Great Construction for the upcoming use of the money that the West will allocate for post-war reconstruction,” a source in the Presidential Office says.

As for the results of the minister’s work, the president’s protege Kubrakov mainly emphasized infrastructure projects that he had been involved in before and which he was good at. He also paid much attention to the formation of the legislative basis for future post-war recovery, as was expressed in the adoption of bill No. 5655 on urban planning activities in favor of the construction lobby. With strong support from the Presidential Office, something ZN.UA has written about several times.

However, the president, not wanting to get his hands dirty in front of indignant Europeans, did not sign the corruption-laden law, while giving the opportunity to the main lobbyists Kubrakov and Olena Shuliak (the head of the Servant of the People party and the author of the bill) to implement the scheme using an unconstitutional government resolution — a clone of bill No. 5655. Without the go-ahead of the Presidential Office, Prime Minister Shmyhal would not have had such an assertive position on this matter. “The Presidential Office is interested both in the law/resolution itself and in the name of the Deputy Prime Minister who will implement it, distributing the financial flows coming from the West. It’s just that now it’s not Kubrakov, but Yurii Holik, the person under NABU investigation in the case of the ex-head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration, Reznichenko, and an indispensable consultant to the Presidential Office,” clarifies the source in the Presidential Office.

As for the results of the work of the Ministry of Infrastructure under Kubrakov in the construction of infrastructure facilities, it is worth recognizing that the ministry had some successes. In the first days and first year of the full-scale invasion, Kubrakov turned out to be the most appropriate manager capable of dealing with military logistics, the area where Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov showed total unpreparedness.

But it gets more tricky when it comes to the transparency of processes. Even despite the ministry’s decision to publish prices of materials during procurement.

“The Restoration Agency was indeed involved in a number of large projects to restore infrastructure, declaring full transparency,” says expert Heorhii Mohylnyi. “Which, however, at the moment is impossible to verify and confirm. There is no examination. By law, all project documentation must be publicly accessible in the Unified State Electronic System in the field of construction (USESCS). But it was closed at the level of the Cabinet of Ministers’ resolution on the procedure for maintaining the USESCS even before the merger of the ministries. In the interests of the construction lobby and corrupt officials. It was very convenient for the ministry to work in this format, telling in beautiful presentations how open and transparent everything was. But you don’t think that access to the register will be open after Kubrakov’s resignation, do you?”

It is important to note that Kubrakov, focusing his attention on lobbying for developers, was unable to create a ministry-based platform for communication and formation of regional policy and interaction with local governments and communities. The Deputy Prime Minister also did not have a good relationship with the parliamentary committee, where in terms of local self-government, all the power is in the hands of the head of the relevant subcommittee, Vitalii Bezhin, not the head of the committee, Olena Shuliak. That is, in fact, no one publicly supported Kubrakov, although the Association of Ukrainian Cities has recently begun to communicate more often with the ministry against the background of the showdown between the parliamentary temporary investigation commission and Mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko. However, Kubrakov ran out of time.

“As a result, the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities under the President of Ukraine has strengthened, and Bezhin and the deputy head of the Presidential Office for regional policy, Oleksii Kuleba, are today the key candidates for Kubrakov’s post. Well, there is one more person who can outweigh both — the ex-Minister for Territorial Development, and now the head of NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine, Oleksii Chernyshov. Can you imagine a great gathering of old friends? Holik with an office on Bankova Street. Tymoshenko with a status in the Ministry of Defense, erecting fortifications. And Chernyshov. They will be really powerful,” says one of the former employees of the Presidential Office.

It is worth clarifying that before the plan to split the ministry worked, Bankova had another creative idea regarding a candidate to replace Kubrakov — the current Minister of Defense Rustem Umerov. As a compromise figure, whose appointment could ease the international pressure on Bankova in favor of Kubrakov. Although Umerov did not live up to the hopes of the super-manager of the Ministry of Defense, nevertheless, the change of the Minister of Defense during the war after nine months of work is a collapse. At the last moment, the “statesmen” came to their senses and switched to dividing the ministry. From here on, read carefully.

ZN.UA wrote in detail about what risks could follow after a critically ill-considered management decision even at the stage of creating the “monster ministry.” We also pointed to global problems, when the authorities absolutely did not respond to the warnings of the expert and international community.

And now, after an obviously failed experiment carried out in the middle of the war, the authorities are making another decision to divide the ministries. With further red tape, re-registration, changes in budget items, personnel competitions and all the attributes of a process that can drag on for months. And here it is almost impossible to assess what is worse: the preservation of the “monster ministry” in its current unbearable form, or its division. Kubrakov failed to handle the area which is key for Europeans in the process of negotiations on EU accession. Without a quality regional policy, we will not receive EU resources. In fact, what’s scary is who and how is manually governing Ukraine today, without thinking at all about the fact that management errors have a threshold behind which is the loss of statehood.

It is also extremely important to understand that after dividing the “monster ministry,” it is institutionally logical to transfer the construction sector to the Ministry of Infrastructure. But taking into account Kubrakov’s position on urban planning reform and the corruption bill No. 5655, which he lobbied for, our state has no time for building institutions. Now the test of bill No. 5655 will have to be passed by the new Minister of Regional Development and Construction, under the supervision of the Presidential Office interested in the distribution of recovery resources. The parliament can vote for the new minister tomorrow. And whoever it will be, he will have to confront Bankova, unless it gives up its hidden goals under the guise of the high-minded need to return regional policy to the responsibility of the state.

According to the latest information, Kubrakov will not be reassigned to the post of Minister of Infrastructure, despite media reports to the contrary. Thus, it can be stated that Kubrakov has completely lost the war against his former partners in President Zelenskyy’s Great Construction project.