Media reported that Zelensky is dissatisfied with Pyshnyi. Will there be a resignation and who could head the NBU?

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskiy is increasingly dissatisfied with the work of the head of the National Bank of Ukraine Andriy Pyshnyy. He believes that Pyshnyy is too close to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and does not do enough to support the country's economy in wartime. This, according to 13, August, Bloomberg reports citing its sources.

According to the publication, tensions in Zelenskiy’s relations with the IMF began to rise last winter after the Fund approved a lending program for Ukraine of $8,1 billion, which required the cabinet, in particular, to raise taxes, provoking sharp criticism from Kyiv.

Zelenskiy was "outraged" by concessions made by the second-largest donor to Ukraine after the European Union, Bloomberg sources say. The sources indicate that he blamed several senior officials, including Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko and former deputy prime minister Taras Kachka. The latter, during cabinet reshuffles, lost his post .

Later the IMF postponed meeting those requirements, while emphasizing the need to ensure the independence of the National Bank of Ukraine during the latest review of the program in June.

Also, according to Bloomberg’s sources, Zelenskiy is unhappy with the scale of Pyshnyy’s public activity, considering it more characteristic of a politician than of the head of the central bank.

Furthermore, as the publication writes, the president is suspicious of Pyshnyy’s habit of publicizing on social media high-level meetings with senior officials and foreign donors, as well as of various PR initiatives by the bank.

According to Bloomberg, Zelenskiy currently does not plan to dismiss Pyshnyy. In particular, because he does not yet see strong candidates to replace him.

Speaker of the Servant of the People faction in the Verkhovna Rada Davyd Arakhamia insists that the person appointed head of the central bank should be a member of parliament, head of the Rada’s Financial Committee Danilo Hetmanets, Bloomberg sources said. Another potential candidate, according to them, is Pyshnyy’s deputy – Serhiy Nikolaychuk.

Pyshnyy, Bloomberg writes, was considered close to former head of the Office of the President Andriy Yermak at the time of his appointment as head of the NBU.

Disagreements between Zelenskiy and Pyshnyy may demonstrate how much politics affects the independence of the central bank during the war, which tests Ukraine’s military capacity, the resilience of its economy, and a fragile constitutional system, the publication believes.