Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced this Monday that Rustem Umerov, until now Secretary of the National Defense Council, will be the next head of the Foreign Intelligence Services.
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Zelensky explained that Umerov will be appointed to the position “so that he has more opportunities to simultaneously address” the different areas in which the war with Russia is decided, whether it is diplomacy, defense, or the negotiation process with the United States and other partners.
Likewise, Umerov will continue to lead the management of agreements on the development of drones on which Ukraine has been working with its Middle Eastern partners, President Zelensky reported during a meeting with Ukrainian ambassadors in Kyiv, according to the Ukrinform agency.
Umerov, who had been Minister of Defense between 2023 and 2025, is one of the trusted men of the Ukrainian president and an active part of the peace negotiations with Russia, in which the United States acts as mediator, thus replacing Oleh Luhovski, who was temporarily in charge of Foreign Intelligence.
According to Ukrainian media, Zelensky has in mind to appoint former Interior Minister Igor Klimenko as the new Secretary of the National Defense Council.
