President Volodymyr Zelenskyy proposed the candidacy of the head of the Main Privatization Agency of Ukraine, Rustem Umerov, for the position of Minister of Defense after Oleksiy Reznikov resigned on Monday.
On Monday morning, Oleksiy Reznikov announced that he had submitted his resignation to the parliament. “It was an honor for me to serve the Ukrainian people and work for the Ukrainian army during the last 22 months, the most difficult period in the modern history of Ukraine,” said Reznikov.
According to Reuters, parliament must approve Umerov’s candidacy before his appointment. “Mr. Umerov needs no further introduction. I expect that the parliament will support this candidacy,” Zelenskyi said on Sunday evening.
Who is Rustem Umerov?
Umerov, 41, is a Crimean Tatar, a peninsula “annexed” by Russia in 2014. He was born in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, to Crimean Tatars deported from Soviet Crimea in the 1940s. As of 2020, Umerov is a member of a Ukrainian government working group working on a strategy to overcome the Russian occupation of Crimea.
In September 2022, Umerov, then a people’s deputy from the pro-European “Voice” party, became the head of the State Property Fund, an agency that sells state assets to private investors.
He is credited with turning around this institution, which was often embroiled in corruption scandals. He also resumed the sale of state property, providing the state with record revenues during the war.
Umerov, described by those close to him as a gifted negotiator, was a member of the Ukrainian team that negotiated with Russia in March 2022, a month after Russia’s full-scale invasion. He was also involved in negotiations on the Black Sea Grain Agreement and the exchange of prisoners, including Ukrainian Azov fighters captured during the fighting for the southern city of Mariupol in 2022.
He was a member of the delegation during Zelensky’s visit to Saudi Arabia in May and accompanied First Lady Elena Zelenska during her visit to the United Arab Emirates in March.
Umerov started his career in the private sector. In 2004, he joined one of the leading mobile operators in Ukraine. In 2013, he founded his own investment company ASTEM and its ASTEM fund.
He has a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in finance.
Source: Hot News
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