UKRAINE’S government was thrown further into chaos yesterday when embattled Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk announced that he was quitting.

In his weekly televised address, Mr Yatsenyuk said his resignation would be formally submitted to parliament tomorrow.

He called for the immediate formation of a new government to prevent “destabilisation of [the] executive branch during a war.”

The outgoing prime minister alleged that the political crisis in Ukraine had been deliberately instigated by his opponents.

“The desire to change one man has stricken politicians blind,” he said. “The process of the government overhaul has turned into mindless running on the spot.”

His cabinet survived a No confidence vote in the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) on February 16, following calls by President Petro Poroshenko for him to resign earlier that day.

Two of the four parties in his governing coalition then walked out, including Yulia Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party.

“As of today,” Mr Yatsenyuk tweeted, “my goals are broader — new electoral law, constitutional reform, judicial reform, Ukraine’s membership of the EU and Nato.”

Changes to electoral law, including a legal amnesty for candidates, are required by the terms of the Minsk II peace agreement with anti-fascist forces in the eastern Donbass region.

EU membership was one of the demands of the the violent 2014 Maidan Square protests that led to a coup against then president Viktor Yanukovych.

That goal was dealt a potentially deadly blow last week by the resounding No vote in a Dutch referendum on whether to approve an EU association agreement with Ukraine.

Nato membership, perhaps the key motive behind Western support for the coup, remains a red line for neighbouring Russia.

Mr Yatsenyuk’s appointment as PM following the coup was famously presaged — if not ordered — by US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, as revealed in a leaked recording of her telephone conversation with US ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt.

Mr Poroshenko recently nominated parliamentary speaker Volodymir Groisma, a member of his Solidarity bloc, as prime minister.

The billionaire president has troubles of his own, however, following last week’s revelations that he transferred ownership of his Roshen sweets empire to a shell company in the British Virgin Islands tax haven.