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What did two ministers' resignations signal in Kyiv?
Summary
A look back at 9 January 2026, when the defence minister and the digital transformation minister stepped down, days after a new economic adviser was named.
What happened in Ukraine's government on 9 January 2026? Two senior ministers submitted their resignations: Denys Shmyhal, the defence minister, and Mykhailo Fedorov, a deputy prime minister and the minister of digital transformation.
The two departures came on the same day and involved posts at the centre of the government's work.
Four days earlier, on 5 January 2026, President Volodymyr Zelensky had appointed Chrystia Freeland, a former deputy prime minister of Canada, as an adviser on economic development. That appointment is a separate step from the resignations, and the reports from the time do not link the two events.
Taken together, the two dates show a government reshaping its personnel in the first days of 2026: a new adviser brought in on 5 January, and two ministers announcing their exit on 9 January.
