28 October 2021
President Volodymyr Zelensky removed Serhiy Kozyr as
head of the Kherson Oblast administration on Oct. 27. He replaced Kozyr with
the current deputy chairman of the Kherson Oblast council, Hennadiy Lahuta,
Interfax-Ukraine reported. Both Kozyr and Lahuta are candidates for the same
Verkhovna Rada seat in the Oct. 31 by-election, and Kozyr is running as a
member of the president’s Servant of the People party.
James Hydzik: That Zelensky is willing to move his party’s candidate out of office
in order to help secure the parliamentary seat indicates both Zelensky’s
priorities in terms of controlling the legislative versus executive branches
and his view of the importance of attempting to keep his supermajority in the
Verkhovna Rada as his and his party’s popularity drop.