Zelenskyy’s Pick to Replace Defense Minister Was Allegedly Poisoned Last Year

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Sunday afternoon that he chose Rustem Umerov as the new defense minister, replacing Oleksiy Reznikov.

"I decided to replace the Minister of Defense of Ukraine. Oleksiy Reznikov went through more than 550 days of full-scale war," he said.

"I believe that the Ministry needs new approaches and other formats of interaction both with the military and with society as a whole," he said on his Telegram channel, adding that he expects parliament to support Umerov for the position.  

The Ukrainian parliament still must approve Zelenskyy’s new pick before Umerov officially becomes defense minister. 

The Wall Street Journal's chief foreign affairs correspondent, Yaroslav Trofimov, pointed out in a tweet that if and when Umerov is approved by parliament it would make Ukraine the first nation in the world with a Jewish president and Muslim defense minister. Umerov is a Crimean Tartar.

In September 2022, the Ukrainian parliament appointed Umerov as the country’s Head of the State Property Fund, which manages all state-owned enterprises. The new defense minister candidate served as a member or parliament in 2019 where he focused on releasing Ukrainian political activists who were imprisoned by Russia.

He also became a member of the Ukrainian negotiation delegation when Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022 and he was allegedly poisoned a month later. 

The Wall Street Journal and investigative journalism outlet Bellingcat were the first to report in March 2022 that Umerov and Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, among other members of a Russian-Ukrainian negotiating group, suffered poisoning-like symptoms during peace talks.

Bellingcat reported that three members of the team, including Umerov and Abramovich consumed only chocolate and water hours before they experienced initial symptoms that included eye and skin inflammation and piercing pain in the eyes. The symptoms subsided later that week and the team were able to attend informal Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Istanbul. 

Zelenskyy’s decision to replace Reznikov comes after the defense ministry signed a $33 million contract with a Turkish company last September for winter military gear that turned out to be overpriced summer jackets. 

Contract documents were manipulated to increase the cost of each “winter” jacket from $29 to $86, according to the Ukrainian newspaper, Dzerkalo Tyzhnia. Ukrainska Pravda reported on Thursday that the defense minister could be dismissed as soon as next week. 

Reznikov promised last week to resign if the overpayments turned out to be true.

"I propose a bet,” he told reporters at the time. “If it turns out that the defense ministry really did supply 180,000 summer jackets instead of winter jackets, then I, Defense Minister of Ukraine Oleksii Reznikov, will write a letter of resignation." Reznikov has held the post since 2021. 

The former defense minister previously faced backlash over the defense ministry overpaying for food supplies for troops in January. Yaroslav Zhelezniak, a member of parliament with the liberal Holos party, said in a Telegram post that Zelenskyy was considering sending Reznikov to London to serve as Ukraine’s next ambassador to the U.K.