The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, signed a decree on Friday to fire the ambassador of Ukraine to Portugal, Inna Ohnivets. The ambassadors in Georgia and Slovakia were also fired.
During a visit to a school in Lisbon, Inna Ohnivets told Sic Noticias that this decision was already set and relates to a “scheduled rotation” between ambassadors. She was informed of the decision two days prior in a conversation with the Minister of Foreign Affairs from Ukraine.
⚡️Zelensky fires ambassadors to Georgia, Slovakia and Portugal.
President Zelensky signed a decree dismissing Ukraine’s Ambassador to Georgia, Ihor Dolhov, to Slovakia, Yurii Mushka, and to Portugal, Inna Ohnivets, all appointed under Zelensky’s predecessor Petro Poroshenko.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) June 25, 2022
The ambassador said she was not fired due to “ineffective actions” of her service in Lisbon. Ukraine has not released any other justifications surrounding Ohnivets or the other ambassadors.
A source of the Ministery of Foreign Affairs told Expresso that this is a normal procedure. First, ambassadors are informed of their exit, then the decision is officially communicated to the country where the ambassador works in, and then the accreditation request for the new ambassador is done.
Zelensky’s decision was officialized on Friday when he signed a degree and announced it on Saturday.
Inna Ohnivets is 59 years old and studied Law and Languages at Kyiv University. She was born in Zhovti Vody, a city in the region of Dnipropetrovsk. She has been the Ukrainian ambassador to Portugal since October 2015.
This week, the ambassador celebrated the European Union’s decision to grant Ukraine candidate status, calling it a “symbolic decision” that is a “direct path” for the country to become a member state.
