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How pro-Russian Telegram channels responded to the reshuffling in the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.
On September 4-5, the Verkhovna Rada dismissed six ministers and appointed nine new ones. As a result of the reshuffle, five ministries gained new permanent heads instead of acting ones. However, the Ministry of Reintegration was left without a minister after Iryna Vereshchuk’s resignation and subsequent appointment as Deputy Head of the President’s Office. Three ministries were handed over to former deputies of Andriy Yermak, the Head of the President’s Office.
“Staffing Circus” and “Power Grab”
The appointment of former deputies of the Head of the President’s Office (PO), specifically Andriy Sybiha, Mykola Tochytskyi, and Oleksiy Kuleba, to ministerial positions sparked a flurry of posts on pro-Russian channels, claiming it was a move by Andriy Yermak to seize power in Ukraine. A Telegram channel with a million subscribers alleged that “all the reshuffles in the Cabinet and the PO are aimed at restructuring the entire power vertical under Andriy Yermak.” Moreover, the propagandist claimed that the head of the PO intended to change the prime minister, but Denys Shmyhal was still in office because “Western partners were against it.”
A similar post from another Telegram channel focused on the former Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba. According to the channel’s “sources from the PO,” Yermak had “long wanted to replace Kuleba, but the Americans had established direct communication with President Zelenskyy through him, which greatly irritated Yermak.” The propagandist claimed that the alleged failure of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to engage with the Global South, supposedly caused by the Kursk offensive, was the pretext for Kuleba’s dismissal. Russian propagandist Sergey Mardan cited other reasons for Kuleba’s removal. He spoke about Zelenskyy’s alleged dissatisfaction “with forcing Western partners to allow Kyiv to strike deep into Russian territory with Western long-range weapons” and that Dmytro Kuleba allegedly “advocated peace on any terms.”
Among the posts discussing the government reshuffle, or as one propagandist channel with 2.7 million subscribers called it, a “ministerfall,” many tried to undermine the effectiveness of the personnel changes. A pro-Russian channel with a million followers dubbed the reshuffle a “staffing circus,” suggesting that the goal was to create a “grand show full of scandals and intrigue” to stir public discussion. At the end of the post, the propagandist added that the new appointments would have no real impact on the future, as all decisions were allegedly made solely by “the President’s Office and personally Zelenskyy.” Another channel with a million followers echoed this sentiment, describing political processes and the fight against corruption in Ukraine as “fiction, presented to the public as democracy, but with no real changes, as everything is decided in a single office on Bankova Street.”
Another post on the same channel claimed that “parliament and the government have lost their agency in Ukraine, with all processes now controlled by the President’s Office. Ministers, deputies, heads of R[egional] S[tate] A[dministration]s, and even mayors are forced to follow the orders of the PO. All the reshuffles are fictional, with actors being swapped in and out, while only Yermak’s opponents are removed from power.”
Pro-Russian Telegram channels spread such messages to create the impression that an authoritarian regime, led by President Zelenskyy with the help of Andriy Yermak, is being established in Ukraine, with democracy allegedly absent. The aim is to fuel public dissatisfaction.
Another theme pushed by these Telegram channels was the idea of “thieves in power.” One propagandist argued that “the government changes are merely formal, and those in power, both past and present, are only concerned with lining their pockets. They steal and steal, while Ukrainians are sent to the frontlines to protect them.” As evidence, they cited the appointment of Olha Stefanishyna as Minister of Justice, who was previously declared a suspect in a criminal offense of misappropriation of property by abuse of office. However, the primary figure in the case is still Olena Lukash, the Minister of Justice under Yanukovych, with Stefanishyna being a suspect, and the case has just been brought to court. The fact that propagandists draw conclusions about “thieves in power” based on unproven accusations against one person in the government reveals their lack of concrete arguments to discredit the newly appointed ministers.
On September 4, when the parliament was approving the ministers’ resignations, a propaganda channel with 146,000 subscribers posted a disinformation piece about an alleged “rebellion” by MPs who “failed to dismiss the ministers.” Allegedly, the resigning ministers want to flee Ukraine, and after this plan was “exposed,” MPs do not want to “evacuate those responsible for strategic directions.” This is allegedly confirmed by the fact that the parliament failed to vote to accept Iryna Vereshchuk’s resignation, and “the meeting was closed during [the voting for the resignation of] Kuleba altogether.” Thus, propagandists tried to find examples to illustrate the “incapacity” of the Ukrainian parliament.
The propagandists also criticized the statement of Mykola Tochytskyi, the newly appointed Minister of Culture and Information Policy, about the need to preserve the [United News] telethon, calling it “a continuation of Bankova’s course of purging the information space.” The propaganda Telegram channels portrayed the telethon as a tool that allows the Presidential Office to “fully control television” and will not be abandoned even though “no one is watching it.” One of the channels with over a million viewers manipulated statistical data, referring to a study by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the Razumkov Center. Thus, relying on the data of a public opinion poll, the channel claimed that “only 3% of the population aged 26 to 40 sometimes watch the telethon” (although the poll did not contain such data). The propagandist called the TV broadcast itself “the laundry of the Presidential Office for money laundering.”
“Red Herring” and “Illegitimate Government”
Another popular message was about personnel changes in the government and the Presidential Office. Two Telegram channels with a total audience of 2 million subscribers spread messages claiming that “reshuffles in the government were allegedly organized by the Presidential Office to shift the focus from the Pokrovske direction, where the frontline collapsed, and it is necessary to channel negative sentiments in society.”
Propagandists claim that the decline in Zelenskyy’s ratings are another reason to consider the personnel changes as an alleged PR campaign by the government. For instance, propagandists from a Telegram channel with 183 thousand subscribers wrote that only 12% of the population allegedly supported the President of Ukraine. The Telegram channel tried to convince the audience the move was due to such a low level of support for the president, “which is tantamount to a rebellion.” The offensive in the Kursk region was called another stage of this “PR campaign.”
Propagandists sermonized about the illegitimacy of Ukrainian government institutions in the same context. Allegedly, because the Verkhovna Rada’s powers expired on August 28 and “there are no more legitimate authorities in Ukraine,” Ukrainian ministers “decided to flee before everything finally collapses.” Based on this message, the propagandists concluded that “in 10 years, Ukraine has gone from a conditional democracy to a dictatorship in the best African and Latin American traditions.” Similar disinformation messages were spread by MP Oleksandr Dubinsky, who is in custody on treason charges. On his Telegram channel, Dubinsky wrote about the alleged change of the Prime Minister in the near future due to the illegitimacy of the government:
“Working with a stewardess prime minister is not much fun, and the risk of going to jail for not following the orders of an illegitimate prime minister (who will be voted in by an illegitimate Rada) is high. Those who are smarter are the ones who are leaving. Unlike MPs, they can make it in time.”
However, these propaganda statements about the illegitimacy of the government in Ukraine are false. According to Article 83 of the Constitution of Ukraine, “In case of expiration of the term of office of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine during martial law, its powers are extended until the first meeting of the first session of the Verkhovna Rada elected after the lifting of martial law.” Similarly, according to Article 108 of the Constitution of Ukraine, the President of Ukraine exercises his powers until the newly elected President takes office, but Article 19 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Legal Regime of Martial Law” prohibits the holding of presidential elections and elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. From a legal point of view, the government in Ukraine is legitimate, and there is no “legitimacy vacuum” in the country, as pro-Russian Telegram channels have been suggesting.
Another reason for propagandists to become more active in spreading disinformation was Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s statement announcing the creation of a “Ministry of Ukrainian Unity” to coordinate relations with Ukrainians living abroad. The aforementioned Dubinsky ridiculed the president’s idea, calling it “an unnecessary waste of budget money, an imitation of concern for those who fled the war and from Zelenskyy.” Another Telegram channel with a million subscribers suggested that the new “Ministry of Repatriation of Ukrainians” could become a tool for mobilizing Ukrainian citizens abroad [into the army].
Russian propagandist Sergei Mardan wrote that the task of returning 7.5 million Ukrainians from abroad is realistic only if “the new ministry is given specially trained people who will take [Ukrainians] out of the EU in trucks at gunpoint.”
A Telegram channel with 146,000 subscribers called the “Ministry of Unity” the “Ministry of Forced Extradition.” They added that the authorities are making such decisions at a time when “Ukrainians are paying 25 thousand dollars to get out of this failed Reich, and residents abroad are begging to have their Ukrainian citizenship revoked.”
The topic of government reshuffles and the potential creation of a new ministry in the future has reignited previous narratives. Pro-Russian Telegram channels continue to promote messages about the illegitimacy and criminality of Ukraine’s government in an effort to destabilize public opinion. The enemy’s propaganda machine aims to deepen the sense of alienation and disappointment with the government among the Ukrainian population. Propagandists seek to cast doubt on Ukraine’s democracy, continuously pushing the narrative of an alleged authoritarian regime under Zelenskyy, facilitated by Yermak. Through demonization of the Ukrainian government and hostile rhetoric, propagandists aim to incite their audience to protest against the authorities.
Martial law in Ukraine does not allow for presidential or parliamentary elections, which means the Verkhovna Rada, responsible for appointing the government, remains legitimate until the first session of the next Rada. Therefore, the newly appointed ministers are legitimate representatives of the government, making the doubts about the government’s legitimacy spread by pro-Russian propaganda a deliberate hostile provocation.
Main page illustration by Nataliya Lobach
