Do we like them?

Do we like Denys Shmyhal?

Our score: 6 out of 10. No harmful words or acts turned up in the searches, but the record on people-and-planet questions is thin and I couldn't read the full articles.

Shmyhal is a technocrat, not a rock star. Born in Lviv in 1975, he trained at Lviv Polytechnic, then worked in the power business, as deputy CEO of DTEK Zakhidenergo and director of the Burshtyn power plant, before moving into government.

The political climb was quick. He ran the Ivano-Frankivsk region from August 2019, became Prime Minister of Ukraine in March 2020, and held the job until July 2025, which made him the longest-serving PM the country has had. He then moved to the Defence Ministry for a few months.

The job swaps have been messy. In January 2026 parliament voted 265 to dismiss him as defence minister after Zelensky proposed Mykhailo Fedorov for the role. The next day he was sent to the Energy Ministry, which had been without a permanent head since Svitlana Hrynchuk's dismissal in November 2025.

His first vote for energy minister fell short, with only 210 MPs in favour, and he got over the line on the second attempt with 248. Blackouts were running for more than 20 hours a day in freezing weather at the time. He said his first job was getting through the acute phase of the crisis as fast as possible, and he named recovery, resilience and modernisation as his priorities.

On the harm check, honestly, there isn't much to go on. Searches turned up no reporting of him demeaning LGBTQ+ people, women or migrants, pushing conspiracy theories or climate denial, or campaigning against anyone's rights. I couldn't open full articles to test that further, so treat it as an absence of evidence rather than a deep clean bill.

On the good-person side, the record is the usual senior-politician mix: long hours, wartime pressure and reshuffles, with nothing reported about how he treats staff or colleagues. An earlier administrative case over a whistleblower came up in searches but I couldn't confirm the details, so I'm leaving it out of the verdict.