In a shock announcement, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday he would replace Yulia Svyrydenko after she had only served a year in office, prompting speculation over who would get the top job at a time when Ukraine is facing intensified Russian attacks.
MPs said on social media that likely contenders to replace Svyrydenko include Serhiy Koretskyi, head of state oil and gas firm Naftogaz; Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal, who was previously defence minister for six months; and current Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.
Zelenskiy posted images of meetings with each after announcing Svyrydenko's dismissal.
Under the Ukrainian system, he will propose a prime minister who selects most other cabinet members.
All must be approved by parliament.
The president said on Sunday he was seeking "renewal" at the top of government and law enforcement agencies to strengthen the country's quest for more air defences from allies, bolster its bid for European Union membership and prepare for Russian attacks on the power grid in the winter.
Appointing Naftogaz chief Koretskyi - seen by many as the top candidate -would place a respected technocrat atop a government that will be increasingly focused on shoring up energy security after Russian strikes on infrastructure that regularly plunge towns and cities into cold and darkness.
Political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko said other similarly experienced crisis managers could get cabinet posts in the reshuffle, such as Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov, whose city is frequently hit by Russian attacks.
Defence Minister Fedorov was another strong candidate, already at the heart of Ukraine's war effort.
But Fesenko, from the Penta Centre think tank, said that taking away Fedorov's defence portfolio could hurt critical army reforms when Ukraine is fighting for the upper hand in its war with Russia - a concern echoed by some opposition MPs.
Ukraine is waging a long-range strike campaign that is hurting Russia's oil sector and its battlefield logistics.
Fedorov, who has overseen the military's technological evolution since his appointment in January, has also pledged to overhaul recruitment.
Opposition MP Inna Sovsun of the Holos party said she was "very frightened" at the potential of fresh instability in the defence ministry.
"Previously, Denys Shmyhal was the minister for half a year, he promised something, started to fulfil it and was fired," she said on Facebook.
"If the same story repeats itself with Mykhailo Fedorov, it will not be funny at all."
The parliamentary procedure to set up the government could start as soon as Tuesday.
Public trust in Zelenskiy has remained relatively stable over the past year at about 60 per cent, according to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.
Reshuffles are one of the few political instruments to overhaul the leadership which Zelenskiy can wield at a time when elections are banned under martial law.
Opposition MP Dmytro Razumkov, a former parliamentary speaker under Zelenskiy, told Reuters the president's "Sunday blitzkrieg" is unlikely to lead to positive changes.
He echoed a popular criticism of Zelenskiy's administration: that it relies on a small circle of loyalists.
"This ... will most likely be a replacement of the same faces and simply a movement of beds around the house."
Zelenskiy said Ukraine and nine other countries were forming a coalition to protect the continent from ballistic missiles, using Ukraine's experience in fighting Russia's full-scale invasion for more than four years.
"Our goal is to build a shared ballistic missile defence capability for Europe," the 10 countries said in a statement in Paris.
Zelenskiy and the leaders of Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom said they recognised "the growing threat posed by ballistic missiles".
with AP
