New Ukrainian foreign minister Andriy Sybihy takes the helm
On Thursday, the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada approved Andriy Sybihy's candidacy for Minister of Foreign Affairs. The current deputy minister will replace Dmytro Kuleba, who has held the position since 2020, encompassing the entire period of Russia's second attack.
The 49-year-old Sybihy's candidacy, proposed by President Volodymyr Zelensky, was supported by 258 deputies, opposition deputy Oleksiy Honcharenko reported.
"Andriy Sybihy is considered a man of his word," a Polish diplomatic source, wishing to remain anonymous, told PAP. According to this source, Sybihy was among the politicians who made possible the excellent diplomatic cooperation right after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. This cooperation resulted in, among other things, arms deliveries.
Sybihy was born in 1975 in Zboriv, in the Ternopil region, in the western part of the country. He graduated from university in Lviv and is, among other things, a lawyer by education. He began his career at the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the late 1990s.
The deputy head of the Ukrainian president
He then became deputy head of the Ukrainian president's office and held that position until April 2024, when he became deputy minister of foreign affairs. In the president's office, where he replaced Andriy Yermak, he was responsible for foreign policy and developing strategic partnerships.
The new head of Ukrainian diplomacy is married and has three children.
Sybihy took up the post of minister as part of the largest reshuffle in the Ukrainian government since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion. Sources close to the Ukrainian president's office told Politico that Sybihy is "a strong, classic diplomat, highly experienced, working with international partners since the beginning of the invasion."
