The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine is actively undergoing personnel rotations, dismissals and new appointments with almost complete replacement of the management team that worked under the previous Minister Ruslan Strilets.
EcoPolitics has prepared an overview of the changes that have recently taken place in the Ministry.
1. On April 15, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine appointed a new deputy to Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk upon her proposal. It was Yegor Perelyhin. The newly appointed official has experience in management (banking and subsoil use), but none in environmental protection.
Yegor Perelyhin is an expert in the field of subsoil use. Since 2018, he has been managing Petro-Consulting (now European Lithium Ukraine LLC), and in 2021-2025 he twice headed the United Mining and Chemical Company JSC. In January 2025, he resigned as acting chairman of the company's board.
“He is a regular lecturer on global supply chains in the field of critical minerals and promotes Ukraine's reindustrialization and strategic positioning on various platforms and during international events,” the Ministry of Environment said.
It is not yet clear what it has to do with environmental protection. The environmental community is already expressing concern that the ministry will be handing out licenses “right and left” at the new “professional” level.
2. The ministry also changed its state secretary. On April 4, the government fired Oksana Sakhnatska. She took over almost immediately after Svitlana Hrynchuk was appointed.
On April 11, Oleksandr Zadorozhny was appointed as the new state secretary. His career also had nothing to do with environmental issues. For several years, he worked at the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine, where he was in charge of industrial development and industrial policy. Later, at the Ministry of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure of Ukraine, he was in charge of road transportation and transport safety. In 2024, he worked at the State Customs Service.
His appointment is more or less clear, but it is surprising that there was not a single specialist in the national economy in the ministry before.
3. In fact, only two top officials from Ruslan Strilts's team are now left in the Ministry of Environment – Serhiy Vlasenko and Viktoriia Kyreeva. But even their spheres of influence and responsibility have changed significantly.
4. After Olena Kramarenko's demonstrative resignation at the end of January, the position of First Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Environment remains vacant.
Unfortunately, there has been no official report from Mr. Strilets, and no vision from Ms. Hrynchuk on the ministry's priorities and specific plans. Unexplained reshuffling of unknown people also does not add to the credibility of the department.
It is unfortunate that the Ministry also forgets about its main functions in the midst of these personnel rotations: the Ministry of Environment still has no response to deforestation in the virgin forests of Zakarpattia, despite the opening of criminal proceedings by the prosecutor's office regarding illegal actions of the Ministry's subordinate SE “Forests of Ukraine” in the forestry “Shipot” and loud publicity.
Activists warned about the fact that foresters were preparing to build a road through old-growth untouched forests a month ago. Recently, environmental organizations reported that the century-old beeches were cut down.
Earlier, EcoPolitics prepared an article for its readers about how much it costs taxpayers to maintain the officials of the Ministry of Environment and what they do.
