Razumkov, Prystaiko among Zelenskiy’s latest key appointments

Dmytro Razumkov, the 35-year-old spokesman for the
Zelenskiy presidential campaign, will lead The People’s Servant party in the
parliamentary elections, said on May 23 Ruslan Riaboshapka, a deputy head of
the Presidential Administration. He will be replacing Ivan Bakanov, Zelenskiy’s
45-year-old campaign manager, who was appointed as the first deputy head of the
Security Service of Ukraine by a presidential decree signed on May 22. Bakanov
will also serve as the director of the main administration in the fight against
corruption and organized crime of the SBU central administration.

The Zelenskiy administration announced other key
appointments in recent days, including making Vadym Prystaiko a deputy head in
the administration. Most recently, he served as the head of the Ukraine mission
to NATO since July 2017. In his first comments after his appointments,
Prystaiko said Zelenskiy is working on activating the negotiations process to
resolve the situation in Donbas, as reported by the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

“I just spoke for several hours with the president on
how we can activate the process, which is stuck as a dead end. All the
processes including Minsk, peacekeeping, the Trilateral Contract Group, the
Normandy Format, telephone talks between leaders and those that will occur in
the nearest future,” Prystaiko said. He stressed that the EU and NATO are
“those partners, without which Ukraine won’t survive.” He added, “The course
towards NATO is fixed in Ukraine’s Constitution.  It is shared by at least
half of Ukraine’s population and the majority of our parliament. I think this
is understood by all.”

Appointments being considered include former Economy
Minister and investment banker Aivaras Abromavicius, who confirmed on May 22
that he visited the Presidential Administration for talks. He said he is only
interested in working at a state enterprise or the Cabinet, not in the
administration. Alex Danylyuk, a key financial adviser to Zelenskiy, was
reported by the liga.net news agency on May 22 to have been appointed as
secretary of the National Security and Defense Council. Yet the decree has yet
to be surface and Danylyuk didn’t confirm his appointment during an interview
112 Ukraine television network the same evening, urging the pubic to wait for the
decree to surface.

Zenon Zawada: Zelenskiy
appointed Bakanov as first deputy SBU head to have someone he trusts at the top
of Ukraine’s national security body. Bakanov is Zelenskiy’s childhood friend
and has been served director of his entertainment company. Yet he has no law
enforcement experience to speak of, which leads us to believe that Zelenskiy
will appoint a professional to serve as SBU head. Danylyuk seems as a
reasonable appointment as security and defense council head, though his
background is in finance and he has no military experience. In this sense, he’s
not much different than his predecessors.

Razumkov is a relatively neutral figure who won’t
overshadow Zelenskiy as the party head. However, having been a member of the
despised Russian-oriented Party of Regions for four years, Ukraine’s
pro-Western forces will be sure to capitalize on that to raise fear among the
public and boost their votes in the parliamentary elections.

Given The People’s Servant party will have strong
results if the elections are held in July (which we view as likely despite all
the controversy), it would be foolish for Zelenskiy to make any sharp moves
beforehand, especially on Donbas. We expect he will spend the next two months
making appointments and getting a reforms agenda in place to present to voters.
At the same time, to help the results of the pro-Russian parties for the July
vote, we expect Russian President Putin to launch a new round of economic
attacks and political pressure on Ukraine, if not escalating the warfare in
Donbas. That will help Zelenskiy’s pro-Western opposition as well.