KYIV, July 27 - President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has dismissed the head of the armed forces, Ruslan Khomchak, his spokesman said at a briefing on Tuesday, citing tensions between the armed forces and the defense ministry.

The move is an attempt to solve a gridlock that had apparently paralyzed management of the armed forces for many months and had even developed a personal animosity between Khomchak and Defense Minister Andriy Taran, according to people familiar with the situation.

Khomchak will be moved to a post on the national security and defense council. He will be replaced by Valery Zaluzhniy, who heads the military's northern command. Ukrainian troops have fought Russian-backed separatists in a conflict that Kyiv says has killed 14,000 people since 2014.

"Commander-in-Chief Ruslan Khomchak is leaving his post, this is the president's decision," Zelenskiy's spokesman Sergiy Nykyforov said a briefing.

"The president wants to see synergy between the ministry of defense and the armed forces of Ukraine, but unfortunately we do not see synergy, but on the contrary we see conflicts."

Yuriy Butusov, a former advisor to the defense minister, said in February that Khomchak and Taran have not spoken to each other since October 2020 due to personal conflicts between the two, mainly over which hardware to purchase and who must control several cargo airplanes busy carrying out commercial contracts.

Khomchak and other military leaders apparently refused to follow several orders from Taran and had instead decided to sue the defense minister in court, Butusov said.

“Just to show the depth of the abyss: Khomchak and Taran have not spoken and have not maintained relations since October 2020,” Butusov wrote in an article published by Censor.net on February 1. “During joint events, Khomchak and Taran avoid even greeting each other in front of their subordinates.”

“The complete absence of contacts and open hatred for each other simply paralyzed the work in the leadership of the country's defense,” Butusov said.

Butusov said the State Bureau of Investigation, at the request of the Defense Ministry, has opened a series of criminal investigations against the command of the armed forces, investigating commercial activities of military aviation, state purchases worth billions of hryvnias that “may bear signs of corruption or incompetence.”


Butusov resigned from his position on May 18, citing a mess at the Defense Ministry and unwillingness of military leaders to solve serious problems in the management of the armed forces.

Khomchak in March denied any rift between him and Taran telling the news outlet gordon.ua: "Here is a working relationship where everyone has his own opinion, they can argue, they can discuss, they can come to something."

Ukraine has urged its Western backers to speed up its entry into the NATO military alliance as a deterrent against Russia, though NATO members say Kyiv must reform its armed forces and tackle corruption to be able to apply. (tl/rt/ez)