San Francisco Frontiers - Ukraine's new PM: a deal-maker as head of wartime government

The 39-year-old, who was appointed economy minister just months before the Kremlin launched its full-scale assault in February 2022, shot to international prominence this year when she championed a vital economic accord between Kyiv and Washington.

"It is a great honor for me to lead the Government of Ukraine today," Svyrydenko said on social media, adding that "war leaves no room for delay. We must act swiftly and decisively".

Svyrydenko led fraught negotiations around a minerals and investment agreement with the United States that nearly derailed ties between Kyiv and its most important military ally.

The deal was central to a disastrous televised spat between Zelensky and US President Donald Trump in February 2025.

Not long after, Svyrydenko travelled to Washington to finalise an agreement that many Ukrainians hoped would placate Trump by giving him a sellable victory and ensure more critical US support for Kyiv.

"She was the key and the only person leading these negotiations. She managed to prevent them from unravelling," said Tymofiy Mylovanov, a former economy minister who worked with Svyrydenko.

She earned the respect of US partners during the negotiations, according to several analysts, including Mylovanov, who described Svyrydenko as preferring a level-headed, non-confrontational approach in politics.

- 'Wartime economy minister' -

Svyrydenko is also viewed as loyal to the powerful head of Zelensky's office, Andriy Yermak, with some seeing her nomination as another attempt from the presidency to consolidate power.

She is taking the helm at a precarious moment, in a country exhausted by more than three years of war and dependent on its foreign allies for survival.

The role of prime minister does not typically include a say on military strategy or frontline operations, where Zelensky and his military chiefs call the shots.

Yet Svyrydenko is central to a young generation of Ukrainian leaders, like Zelensky, who have guided the country through the Russian invasion and contrast starkly with the Soviet-styled elites that dominate in Russia.

She was not yet 30 when the Kremlin helped foment a violent overthrow of authorities in eastern Ukraine, as popular protests demanded that Kyiv pursue closer integration with Europe.

And her native region of Chernigiv, which borders Russia and its war ally Belarus, was briefly occupied at the start of the invasion launched in February 2022.

Despite being ravaged and facing a potentially crippling recession, she kept Ukraine's economy afloat during the war, including by pushing for some businesses to have exemptions from key staff being mobilised into the armed forces.

Keeping businesses going will be "her legacy as the wartime economy minister," Andy Hunder, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, told AFP.

- 'Emblematic' -

"Svyrydenko is emblematic of the Ukrainian people's resilience," then-US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo wrote of her in Time Magazine in 2023.

Svyrydenko, who mostly avoids the press, moved through the ranks of government quickly after graduating with honours from the National University of Trade and Economics and a brief spell in the private sector.

She held a variety of posts in her native Chernigiv region before being appointed by presidential decree as deputy head of the president's office in 2020.

Less than a year later, she became deputy prime minister and economy minister.

Svyrydenko has said that civil service was a part of her life since childhood, as both her parents worked in government.

"I saw how they devoted themselves to serving the community, how their hometown and its improvement were their core values," she recently told Ukrainian media.

T.Martin--SFF