AKIPRESS.COM - Ukraine's parliament has voted to accept the resignation of Oleksiy Honcharuk, the country's youngest prime minister, who purportedly ridiculed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's views on the economy as "primitive".

Denys Shymgal, who was deputy prime minister in Honcharuk's cabinet, will replace him and has promised to improve the economy by revising the 2020 budget and to cut ministers' salaries, Al Jazeera reports.

The dismissal of Honcharuk, a 35-year-old lawyer, could be a boost for Zelenskyy, a former comedian who won last year's vote with populist pledges to upend the clout of regional oligarchs, crack down on corruption and reform an economy cratered by Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and its backing of separatists in two southeastern provinces.

In February, Zelenskyy's ratings fell below 50 percent for the first time as the government has been criticised for inconsistent reforms and failed attempts to negotiate a peace deal with the separatists and Moscow.

A scandal with leaked audio recordings of Honcharuk's meeting with finance officials also hurt Zelenskyy's popularity.

Posted online in mid-January, the recordings are of a man whose voice resembles Honcharuk's saying that the president has a "very primitive understanding of the economy" and describing himself as a "layman" in economic matters.

The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's lower house of parliament, is dominated by Zelenskyy's Servant of the People party and voted Honcharuk out, with 353 legislators out of 411 present approving his resignation.

Before the vote, Zelenskyy said: "This is the first government where there is no high-level corruption. But not stealing is not enough. This is a government of new faces, but faces are not enough. New brains and new hearts are needed."

According to Ukraine's constitution, only a parliamentary vote can dismiss a prime minister, and the step entails the dismissal of the entire cabinet.