President Dismisses Head of his Office Boris Lozhkin

UKRAINE - In Brief 29 Aug 2016 by Dmytro Boyarchuk

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On August 29th President informed about dismissal of Head of President Office Boris Lozhkin. A no-name person Igor Raynin, till recently Head of Kharkiv Region State Administration, was named as a replacement for Lozhkin. There was no much information about this dismissal. In media there was propagated view that Lozhkin moved to more strategically important position –Head of National Investment Council – and there will be no change in President Office policy after such replacement. No more info leaked about this event so far. So what are our observations/ thoughts about this news? Firstly, very ‘smooth’ reaction of media to this dismissal (and very scarce information about this event) hints us to conclusion that the event was very well prepared and all messages, circulating in public, were designed in centralized manner. Secondly, given that Lozhkin is one of the best media-professionals in this country we suspect that such smoothness of information flow was on his demand. This gives little chance for hypothesis about conflict between Lozhkin and Poroshenko, otherwise we would expect an avalanche of critical articles with many tasty details released to the public.Thirdly, (if points (1) and (2) are true) with this move Lozhkin apparently prepares for new political season. Will it be his nomination for Prime-minister post or he just targets potential early parliament elections – we do not know.Fourthly, possibly Lozhkin decided that at this stage it’s better for him to look politically separated from the current ruling group. Definitely Lozhkin does not plan to retire from political career but why he might need new image of ‘someone dismissed from the power’ – we do not...