Ukraine’s President asks PM Yatsenyuk to resign

The Verkhovnaya Rada (Ukrainian parliament) is expected to hold a no-confidence vote on Tuesday, as the motion has already been submitted. His approval scores have plunged to under 1 % however he has no apparent successor, though the parliamentary speaker and the technocrat finance minister are thought-about contenders.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk once said that taking the job of Ukrainian prime minister was an act of “political suicide” and on Tuesday he was nearly proven right.

But it was largely pressure from within Poroshenko’s own party that forced his hand Tuesday, as lawmakers gathered signatures to push a vote of no confidence against Yatsenyuk.

“We have built the foundations for a new country”.

Mr Yatsenyuk’s public support has eroded amid Ukraine’s economic problems.

The blocs led by the prime minister and the president are the largest in parliament and they, along with a collection of other political factions, have been in a tug-of-war for influence that has stymied reforms.

The 41-year-old former banker has been in office since Urkaine’s dramatic February 2014 revolution ousted the ex-Soviet country’s Russian-backed leader and set it on a westward course.

Mr Poroshenko’s office announced yesterday that he had “asked prosecutor General Viktor Shokin to resign and called on prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to “completely re-format the government on the basis of the current coalition”.

Although he did not have an image as a tough politician, he became known for his vitriolic condemnations of Moscow and he won plaudits for standing up to Russian Federation as it cut off vital gas supplies to Ukraine over a bitter price dispute.

More than 9,000 people have been killed in fighting since separatists rose up in eastern Ukraine after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk had previously sought to convey unity after Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius and Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaliy Kasko quit amid accusations ruling-party officials were blocking reforms.

International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde warned last week that it was “hard to see” how the bailout could continue without Ukraine pushing through the economic restructuring and anti-corruption measures it had signed on to when the package was agreed.