Ukraine has its first Jewish prime minister after the parliament gave its approval for speaker Volodymyr Groysman to take the post.

Mr Groysman, 38, was voted in by a margin of 257 to 50 after MPs formally accepted the resignation of former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

The former leader announced on Sunday that he intended to step down after two years in office.

Speaking to the parliament in Kiev, Mr Groysman said: “Together we will make Ukraine successful.”

The new prime minister, Ukraine’s fifth in the last 10 years, also served as acting prime minister in 2014 after Mr Yatsenyuk first handed in his resignation, which was rejected.

Mr Groysman is a close ally of President Petro Poroshenko, having held the position of mayor in the president’s political base of Vinnytsia in west Ukraine.