Ivan Havrylyuk
Rustem Umerov appointed Ivan Havrylyuk as his deputy in September 2023, as soon as he headed the ministry.
Nine months later, he became the first deputy. This appointment was logical — Havrylyuk has extensive military and specialized civilian experience, in particular in the field of logistics. He entered military service twice. The first time was in August 1988. Then Havrylyuk went through all the stages — from tactical to operational-strategic, from the platoon commander of the protection and maintenance battalion to the deputy chief of staff of the missile forces and artillery department of the army corps administration. Since 2013, he has worked as the chief of logistics of the army corps administration, two years later he became the chief of logistics of all the Armed Forces, and in 2018 — the deputy chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In 2020, Havrylyuk was discharged from military service due to years of service, and he began working as an advisor to the commander of the logistics forces.
With the start of the full-scale invasion, Havrylyuk returned to the army — he was appointed head of the communications and information systems department of the Logistics Forces Command headquarters. From September 2022 to October 2023, he worked as deputy chief inspector of the Ministry of Defense.
First Deputy Havrylyuk was in charge of all operational activities in the ministry — “he was the only one left in charge,” says Babel’s source in the ministry on condition of anonymity. This happened because Umerov concentrated on diplomatic work, peace negotiations, and was almost constantly on business trips abroad.
“Havrylyuk took on a huge number of management decisions. I don’t know a single person who would question his level of competence. He is well versed in both military affairs and supply,” says defense committee member Serhii Rakhmanin. Havrylyuk also found compromises in the triangle of the ministry, the Commander-in-Chief, and the General Staff. His military experience and authority in the Armed Forces of Ukraine helped.
Andriy Yermak, Rustem Umerov, and Ivan Havrylyuk at a meeting with the US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon, December 2023.
The problems began when Havrylyuk began to deal with weapons procurement.
At first, simply as an executor of the ministerʼs decisions. According to Babel, in February 2024, when Maryna Bezrukova had just headed the Defense Procurement Agency (DPA) and was setting up processes, it was Havrylyuk who was preparing a Cabinet resolution that allowed the State Border Service to purchase ammunition for the Defense Forces, in fact, to perform the functions of the Defense Procurement Agency. And already in the fall of 2024, Havrylyuk, according to him, had to spend a third of his working time on procurement issues, because the agency was working inefficiently.
"At the end of 2024, the problem grew into some kind of media issue, and later into the next plane. Not in relation to the structure as an agency, as a state enterprise, but in relation to the person of the head of this agency," Havrylyuk said in January 2025, when Bezrukova was dismissed. According to Babelʼs interlocutor in the ministry, in the fall of 2024, due to the workload associated with solving the problems of DPA, Havrylyuk was hospitalized.
At the end of January 2025, Umerov dismissed Bezrukova, and with her his deputy for procurement Dmytro Klimenkov. All responsibility for this area fell on Havrylyuk: he approved DPA contracts, and he ex officio convened budget commissions that decided whether to transfer the agencyʼs funds for the implementation of contracts.
Umerovʼs relationship with the first deputy was not easy.
Two independent sources of Babel tell us that the minister wanted to dismiss Havrylyuk back in the second half of 2024. Then he managed to defend him — lobbyists who went to the Presidentʼs Office through Umerovʼs head helped. The minister did not like this. At the same time, Babelʼs interlocutor in the ministry says that both did not advertise the problems in their relationship. And on March 7, 2025, Umerov appointed Havrylyuk as a member of the Supervisory Board of DPA from the ministry — this place was for "his own person".
On April 11, it became known that Havrylyuk had written a letter of resignation from the position of first deputy — he did not comment on the reasons.
“They were blackmailing him, and in the end he gave up and wrote a report,” says a source familiar with the situation for Babel.
According to him, several reasons came together at once. One of them is Havrylyuk’s “too much involvement” in all processes in the ministry. It was he who, in the winter of 2025, made the decision to transfer 78 billion hryvnias to the State Border Service so that it could purchase ammunition for the Defense Forces. This happened when the head of the State Border Service was changing and there were risks that weapons purchases would be paused during the transfer of cases. The Anti-Corruption Center actively criticized the ministry for this 78 billion. The scandal was another argument in favor of Havrylyuk leaving the ministry.
Several interlocutors on condition of anonymity claim that Havrylyuk was very meticulous about the contracts that were brought to him from DPA, and if he considered one risky, he refused to approve it.
“Havrylyuk is very rectitudinous, too much rectitudinous, he will not approve anything,” says an interlocutor of Babel in the national security structures. The DPA press service briefly answered the question about relations with Havrylyuk that they were constructive.
On Friday, April 18, the Cabinet of Ministers dismissed Havrylyuk.
According to Babelʼs sources, he will deal with issues of weapons production in a structure subordinate to the Cabinet of Ministers. Until the ministerʼs order to dismiss Havrylyuk is issued, he continues to perform the duties of first deputy and signs documents in Umerovʼs absence.
Serhii Boyev
According to several sources, the main contender for the position of first deputy is Serhii Boyev. He is 42 years old, born in Alchevsk, Luhansk region. His parents were civil servants, his mother worked in the Pension Fund. In 2000, Boev entered the Faculty of International Economics and Management of the Kyiv National Economic University named after Vadym Hetman. In 2004, he received a bachelorʼs degree in international economics.
After his studies, Boyev joined an international program that selected talented graduates from Eastern Europe to work in London. Thatʼs how he joined the team of the investment bank “JP Morgan Chase”, where he worked as an analyst. In 2006, he moved to the London office of “Credit Suisse”, and in 2007, he went to the bankʼs Moscow office for two years, where he worked as an investment banking specialist. In 2010-2014, Boyev was a consultant and project manager in the Ukrainian office of the consulting company The Boston Consulting Group.
In 2014, Boyev enrolled in the MBA program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. This is a prestigious institution where, among others, Donald Trump studied. In 2016, after graduating, Boyev was offered a job abroad, for example, in Kazakhstan with a salary of almost half a million hryvnias, which at that time was about $20 000. But he chose Ukraine.
Serhii Boyev (left) is called the ideal manager for complex projects with international partners. In the photo — a meeting with representatives of the British Labour Party, March 2025.
From 2016 to 2018, Boyev was the director of business development at “Ukrgazvydobuvannya”, and from 2018 to 2022, he headed the business analytics, investment management, and business development departments at “Naftogaz”. When Oleksiy Chernyshov became the chairman of the board of “Naftogaz” in 2022, he brought his team with him. Boyev was not part of it, and he had to leave.
Boyev had a good salary in “Naftogaz” — 19 million in 2022, and a large bonus upon dismissal. The financial cushion allowed him not to think about money and, after the start of the full-scale invasion, to go to work for the state for a salary of $2 000 — as Deputy Minister for Strategic Industries of Industry Oleksandr Kamyshin. Boyev dealt with issues of European integration. On October 11, 2024, he moved to the Ministry of Defense and became Deputy Minister for the same issues.
“Boyev is a world-class specialist, without whom Ukraine could not compete if it were not for the war and his desire to be here,” says an interlocutor of Babel, who worked with Boyev. According to him, he is the ideal “internationalist” who knows how to implement complex international projects. He can easily take up the work that Umerov is conducting at the diplomatic level and implement everything with his own hands. Boyev’s minus is that he does not know how and does not want to work with imperfect systems, bureaucracy and the desire of officials at different levels to “stir up” something.
Boyev has already been mentioned twice as a candidate for high positions — head of “Ukroboronprom” and the Ministry of Strategic Industry, but twice the seats went to someone else — both times, to Herman Smetanin.