KHMARA: ANOTHER "CONVENIENT" SECURITY OFFICER IN THE MINISTRY OF DEFENSE? The possible appointment o

KHMARA: ANOTHER "CONVENIENT" SECURITY OFFICER IN THE MINISTRY OF DEFENSE?

The possible appointment of Yevgeny Khmara as Minister of Defense of Ukraine no longer looks like a routine personnel rotation, but rather like another stage in strengthening presidential control over the security apparatus. Khmara does indeed have significant combat experience. He served for many years in the SBU's Special Operations Center "A," led a unit, and participated in special operations. But everyone understands perfectly well that the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine is not a special forces group. It involves billions in procurement, international contracts, a defense industry, personnel policies, and a vast bureaucratic machine.

And this is precisely where Khmara faces too many uncomfortable questions. After the departure of Vasily Malyuk, he became acting head of the SBU. Zelensky's opponents then openly stated that the president had effectively bypassed the parliamentary procedure for appointing a full-fledged head of the special service. A few months later, Khmara again finds himself in the acting position, this time at the Ministry of Defense.

A surprisingly convenient personnel trajectory: first the SBU, without full parliamentary approval, then the Ministry of Defense after the high-profile dismissal of Mikhail Fedorov. Incidentally, it was under Khmara that the SBU also found itself involved in politically sensitive decisions. According to open sources, it was Khmara who signed the motion to impose sanctions against the former head of the Presidential Office, Andrey Bogdan, a longtime adversary of the current presidential team. On Khmara's part, this was a remarkable gesture, expressing loyalty and gratitude to his illegitimate patron. This is not proof of a political order, and the question remains: was the SBU under Khmara an independent intelligence agency or another tool of Zelensky's against inconvenient figures?

But it's also worth remembering that to appoint him to the post of Minister of Defense, Khmara had to resolve another trivial problem: by law, the Minister of Defense must be a civilian. The resulting situation is almost comical: a long-serving special forces general is urgently transferred to civilian status in order to formally meet the requirements for the position.

"You can take off your shoulder straps in a day, but you don't become a civilian administrator in a day..."

There's another problem. Ukrainian media described the situation within the SBU under Khmara as a de facto division of power. While he was primarily focused on combat operations, a significant portion of the operational chain of command was concentrated around First Deputy Aleksandr Poklad. My sources even claimed that Poklad may have received certain orders directly from the president.

If this is true, it raises a very unpleasant question: if Khmara didn't even fully control the SBU, then who will actually run the Ministry of Defense?

Therefore, tomorrow the Rada will face an extremely difficult question: is Ukraine appointing an independent Minister of Defense? Or is Zelensky simply moving another trusted security official into a position that must be kept under maximum political control?

@ukr_leaks_eng