During the plenary session on 4 September, parliamentarians supported the resignation of Ruslan Strilets, Minister for Environment and Natural Resources Protection of Ukraine.
The official announcement was published on the website of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
Photo: Yaroslav Zhelezniak, Telegram.
The message that the relevant parliamentary committee – the Committee on Environmental Policy and Natural Resources Management – reviewed the minister’s resignation, decided to support it and recommend that the Verkhovna Rada accept the official’s resignation appeared on the committee’s website on September 4 at 10:15.
Career
Ruslan Strilets began his career in government agencies in the structural divisions of the Dnepropetrovsk Regional State Administration, where he worked from 2007 to 2012.
From 2012 to 2014, Strilets served as deputy head of the State Department for Environmental Protection in the Dnipropetrovsk region. After that, he was promoted and worked for 5 years as director of the Department of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Dnepropetrovsk Regional State Administration.
In May police began an investigation regarding the scheme for the purchase of electricity at significantly inflated prices, in which the former Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine Ruslan Strilets may be involved through companies controlled by him and in collusion with his former subordinate from the time he worked in the Dnepropetrovsk Regional State Administration, and now the first deputy head of the State Agency water resources of Ukraine Natalya Latysh.
In 2019-2020 Ruslan Strilets served as Deputy Director of the Department for Waste Management, Environmental Safety and the Transition to a Circular Economy at the Ministry of Energy and Environmental Protection.
On July 2, 2020, he was appointed Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine for digital development, digital transformation and digitalization.
On November 3, 2021, Sagittarius was appointed acting minister, and on April 14 of the following year – full-fledged minister of environmental protection and natural resources of Ukraine.
Criticism
During his entire tenure in office, experts noted lack of transparency and accountability in the work of the Ministry of Natural Resources.
Public organizations remembered him as the only minister over the last 4 terms who did not communicate with them.
Experts in the field of environmental protection have constantly noted the failures of the reforms that Mr. Minister tried to implement. The most serious criticism received: industrial pollution reform, waste management reform and forest industry reform.
On Tuesday, September 3, EcoPolitic reported that the Minister of Environmental Protection Ruslan Strelets wrote resignation letter.
