Former head of the board of Ukrzaliznytsia Volodymyr Zhmak does not plan to leave the railway industry.

"I aspired to make Ukrzaliznytsia the locomotive of Ukrainian economy in 2021. Thanks to everyone who was there and supported this goal. In the future, I am not going to stand aside, because I have already managed to feel like a member of a large railway family. Only forward," Zhmak wrote in his Telegram channel on Wednesday evening, March 17.

At the same time, he believes that the decision of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to remove him from office is unfounded.

"The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine decided to dismiss me from the post of the chairman of the board of Ukrzaliznytsia. This decision looks at least strange both in the absence of grounds and in gross violation of all possible procedures and the law," he said.

According to Zhmak, at an extraordinary meeting of the company's supervisory board on Monday, he presented a three-hour report, on Tuesday he received a call from head of the supervisory board Sevki Acuner who "offered to urgently write a letter of resignation by agreement of the parties."

"Since I did not see any grounds for such a 'friendly offer', I never received any messages about shortcomings in my work from the Supervisory Board, therefore I did not accept this 'generous offer'. After that, today in the morning [Wednesday], breaking all the stereotypes about slowness of decision-making by the Ministry of Infrastructure, the minister had already prepared and submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers a submission on ​​my dismissal. Someone was in a hurry with this issue," Zhmak said.

As reported, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, on the recommendation of the Supervisory Board of JSC Ukrzaliznytsia on March 17, dismissed head of the board of the company Zhmak and re-appointed to the position of acting head of the board of Ukrzaliznytsia Ivan Yuryk (current member of the board of Ukrzaliznytsia), who previously served as the head of the company.

Earlier, the Supervisory Board of Ukrzaliznytsia considered the possibility of removing the head of the board of Ukrzaliznytsia.

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the candidacy of Zhmak, who held the post of head of the Boryspil Airport Supervisory Board, as Chairman of the Board of JSC Ukrzaliznytsia on August 26, 2020. The supervisory board of the company supported his candidacy on August 12 of the same year.