Ukrainian Prime Minister Alexei Goncharuk announced his resignation on his Facebook page.
"In order to avoid any doubts about our respect for and trust in the president, I penned a letter of resignation and handed it over to the president with the right of submitting it to parliament," the PM wrote on Facebook.
Goncharuk stressed that the public recently witnessed "events unfolding around some edited files consisting of fragments of recordings of government meetings posted on line," whose content artificially creates the impression that the head of government and his team do not respect the head of state.
Two audio clips allegedly featuring fragments of Goncharuk’s informal meeting held on December 16, 2019, ahead of the upcoming meeting with President Vladimir Zelensky were earlier uploaded to YouTube titled How to Deceive the President. The voice attributed to Goncharuk asked his associates to help him explain to the head of state why the hryvnia was becoming stronger and how that could affect the state budget. Goncharuk allegedly admitted that he was an utterly ‘ignorant’ person as far as the economy was concerned and that the president had "a very primitive understanding of economic processes."
The office of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has confirmed that it had received Goncharuk’s resignation letter.
Alexei Goncharuk has been the Prime Minister of Ukraine since 29 August 2019.
