Olga Stefanishyna. Photo courtesy of the Office of the President
The Financial Times reported this, noting that the diplomat will step down after less than a year in Washington. Stefanyishyna took office as ambassador in late August 2025, succeeding Oksana Markarova. Prior to that, she served as Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration and as Minister of Justice of Ukraine.
The reason for the heightened attention was an investigation by the Ukrainian publication Hromadske, published in June 2025. Journalists reported that in the fall of 2022, Stefanishyna’s mother, Nadezhda Kravets, purchased a three-room apartment with an area of about 100 square meters in the “Lvivska Ploshcha” residential complex in Kyiv for 3.04 million hryvnias (about $83,000). According to the investigation, similar apartments from the developer at that time cost about 12 million hryvnias ($300,000).
A real estate agent interviewed by Hromadske called the transaction price listed in the documents “unrealistic,” noting that apartments in that area were selling for no less than $2,000 per square meter. Journalists also noted that the apartment in the “Lvivska Ploshcha” residential complex is not listed in Stefanishyna’s declaration.
Stefanishyna herself denied the allegations. In an interview with the investigative journalism project Bihus.Info, she stated that her parents had invested in the apartment back in 2019, when the price per square meter was significantly lower, and the purchase was made on an installment plan.
Earlier, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported that Stefanishyna intends to leave the diplomatic service of her own accord. People’s Deputy Oleksiy Goncharenko also announced the ambassador’s impending departure, without specifying the reasons.
Yesterday, July 12, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy initiated personnel changes in the government. He asked Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko to resign and take the lead in “a new important direction in relations with a key partner.” Sviridenko confirmed her resignation. According to MPs Yaroslav Zheleznyak and Oleksiy Goncharenko, she may be appointed as Ukraine’s new ambassador to the U.S., though there has been no official confirmation of this information yet.
