Mariana Bezuglaya will remain deputy chair of a parliamentary defense committee despite an ongoing spat with army commanders
Ukrainian lawmakers declined to support a motion to remove MP Mariana Bezuglaya from her role as deputy chair of the parliamentary committee on national defense on Wednesday.
The vote came amid a major overhaul of the Ukrainian cabinet, as MPs voted on resignations tendered this week by several ministers. The proposal to oust Bezuglaya was meant to discipline her for a long record of criticizing the military and disclosing to the public information embarrassing to the armed forces.
According to MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak, just 205 votes were cast in favor of the measure, below the threshold of 226 required for it to pass. He released a breakdown of the vote on social media, complaining that the faction of Vladimir Zelensky’s Servant of the People party did not even support the “weak” punishment, which would have kept the MP on the committee as a regular member.
Last week, the MP was at the center of a major scandal, when she claimed that Ukraine’s loss of its first F-16 fighter jet was caused by friendly fire. She stated that the US-made aircraft was destroyed by a US-made Patriot missile amid a Russian long-range strike.
The commander of the Air Force, Nikolay Olishchuk, lashed out at Bezuglaya, branding her a “tool for discrediting the senior military leadership” and warning that sometime she would “apologize for what she did before the entire army, hopefully in court.” Zelensky later sacked the senior military official.
On Wednesday, the outspoken MP implied that Roman Gladky, the commander of Ukrainian drone operations, may be a traitor, publishing what she claimed to be his wife’s application form for Russian citizenship. Gladky is currently under investigation, after a deadly Russian missile strike on a military school in Poltava on Tuesday, where troops were being taught how to deploy unmanned aircraft.
The Ukrainian cabinet overhaul started on Tuesday. MP David Arakhamia, parliamentary faction head of Zelenksy’s party, said that more than half of its members may be replaced.
The plan however met a hiccup on Wednesday, as MPs failed to approve some of the resignations and did not take a vote on Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, who tendered his resignation earlier in the day. This is understood to be a temporary delay, however.
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