Ukrainian President rejects PM's resignation

PanARMENIAN.Net - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected the resignation of the country’s prime minister following the release of an audio recording in which he appeared to make disparaging comments about Zelensky’s understanding of economics, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Oleksiy Honcharuk, who has been in office since August, tendered his resignation early Friday but Zelensky later said that he would give Honcharuk a second chance, tasking him with overhauling the economy.

A political novice and former economic adviser to Zelensky, Honcharuk has focused on accelerating economic reforms in Ukraine, one of Europe’s poorest countries. In December, his government gained a tentative approval from the International Monetary Fund for $5.5 billion in loans.

In the recording, which surfaced earlier this week, Honcharuk is heard discussing the economic situation in the country with cabinet ministers and other officials, according to Ukrainian media. Honcharuk appears to say that Zelensky “has a very primitive understanding of economic processes.”

A spokeswoman for Zelensky didn’t respond to a request for comment. Zelensky’s office on Friday gave law enforcement two weeks to determine who was involved in the making of the recording and find out who attended the meeting.

Honcharuk didn’t deny that the voice on the recording was his but suggested that the audio might have been stitched together from fragments of various government meetings.

“This content artificially creates the idea that my team and I do not respect the president,” Honcharuk said in a statement on his Facebook page. “But this is not true.”

Later Friday, Mr. Zelensky said that he won’t accept the resignation, saying that “now is not the time to shake the country economically and politically.”