Volodymyr Zelensky falls apart in the most difficult hour of negotiations and resets the presidential office. On Friday evening, the Ukrainian president announced the resignation of his all-powerful chief of staff, Andrii Yermak, whose residence had been searched that morning by anti-corruption investigators. The searches, which likely also affected the presidential offices, came as Kiev is under pressure from the United States to sign a peace agreement with Russia which, meanwhile, never misses an opportunity to reiterate that"we are only negotiating with Washington." And so the Ukrainian president had to quickly reshuffle the deck.
“I don’t want anyone to question Ukraine, and that’s why we made today’s decisions,” Zelensky said. In his evening address, he then announced that he would “reset” the presidential office, announced that Yermak had resigned, and that he would begin consultations on Saturday to appoint a new cabinet chief. Yermak’s name was also not on the list of officials Zelensky said would make up the Ukrainian delegation for the next round of negotiations with the United States. The delegation will now be jointly led by Andrii Khnatov, head of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Andrii Sybikha, Ukrainian Foreign Minister, and Rustem Umerov, head of the Ukrainian Security Council, Zelensky said. Negotiations will take place “soon.”
The interested party, who claims to have cooperated with investigators, maintains, however, that he has not received any notice of investigation and therefore is not the target of the investigators who searched his home. The agencies, however, confirm that he is indeed the target of the investigation. The fact is that as the hours passed, his resignation matured.
The searches come amid a Mida investigation into a $100 million energy corruption scandal involving senior Ukrainian officials that has dominated national headlines in recent weeks. The European Union considers the fight against corruption crucial to Ukraine's EU membership.
Yermak was Ukraine's chief negotiator in peace talks with Russia and the United States. The unprecedented searches of the Ukrainian government's headquarters come at a sensitive time for Kiev, and it's unclear where Zelenskyy and Yermak were at the time of the morning raid."Investigators are not encountering any obstacles," Yermak wrote on Telegram.
It's unclear whether and how the searches are connected to the Mida case, and Anton Tatarnikov, spokesman for the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), declined to comment, citing legal restrictions on disclosing details of an ongoing investigation. Meanwhile, European Commission spokesman Guillaume Mercier told local Ukrainian radio station Radio Svoboda that Brussels was closely monitoring developments and that the searches showed that Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies were working.
Investigators suspect the mastermind of the plot is Tymur Mindich, a onetime business partner of Zelensky. Mindich has fled the country, and any criminal proceedings against him will likely be conducted in absentia. Two prominent government ministers have already resigned due to the scandal. Two former deputies to Yermak, Oleh Tatarov and Rostyslav Shurma, left the government in 2024 after regulators investigated them for financial irregularities. A third deputy, Andrii Smyrnov, was investigated for corruption and other irregularities but continued to work for Yermak.
The scandal has caused new problems for Zelensky, who is trying to gain support from Western countries. In early November, the Ukrainian president faced an unprecedented rebellion from his own parliamentarians after investigators made public details of their investigation into the energy sector. Although Yermak has not been accused of any wrongdoing, several high-ranking MPs from Zelensky's party said the cabinet chief should take responsibility for the debacle to restore public trust. Some argued that if Zelensky hadn't fired him, the party could split, jeopardizing the president's parliamentary majority. But Zelensky challenged them, urging Ukrainians to unite and"stop playing political games" in light of US pressure to reach a deal with Russia.
The relationship between Yermak and Zelensky dates back over 15 years, when Yermak was a lawyer trying his hand at television production and Zelensky was a famous Ukrainian comedian and actor. He oversaw foreign affairs as a member of Zelensky's first presidential team and was promoted to cabinet chief in February 2020. Yermak has accompanied Zelensky on every foreign trip since the Russian invasion in February 2022, and the president's trust in him has made Yermak's power nearly untouchable. Domestically, officials describe him as Zelensky's guardian, and he is believed to have chosen all the top government officials, including prime ministers and cabinet ministers.
The head of Ukraine's parliamentary anti-corruption commission, Anastasiia Radina, said on social media that Yermak's resignation was"better late than never." Mykyta Porturaev, a lawmaker from Zelensky's party who last week called for Yermak's resignation and the formation of a cross-party government, said the anti-corruption raid had deepened Ukraine's political crisis.
