Earlier in the day parliament approved the resignation of Oleksiy Goncharuk after he spent only six months on the job. Goncharuk had offered to resign on Tuesday, in his second attempt to quit after a leaked recording emerged in January of him questioning President Volodymyr Zelensky's grasp of economics.

Presenting Shmygal to lawmakers ahead of the vote, Zelensky said he hoped that "we will finally have a government for people". Shmygal vowed to address economic and social issues in a country still locked in a conflict with separatists in the east.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2020