By Independent News Roundup
RT: FILE PHOTO. Andrey Yermak (L) and Vladimir Zelensky. © Getty Images / Anadolu / Telegram
Andrey Yermak, the once omnipotent chief of staff in Vladimir Zelensky’s administration, has resigned amid a probe by an anti-corruption agency his ex-boss tried to take control of, but ultimately failed.
The exposure of a $100 million extortion racket that brought down two government ministers and implicated a man known as "Zelensky's wallet" continues to send shockwaves through Ukraine’s political landscape.
On Friday morning, agents from the Western-backed anti-corruption agency NABU, raided Yermak's apartment; the second raid on a home of a close associate of the struggling Ukrainian leader, following Timur Mindich's decision to flee to Israel hours before he was due to be apprehended in mid November.
RT looks into the 53-year-old former chief of staff, caught in the crosshairs of a massive extortion probe, who is often described as “Ukraine’s real power broker.”
Long-standing ties to Zelensky
Former entertainment lawyer and film producer Yermak has been a close associate of Ukraine’s leader since the early 2010s. The two became acquainted when Zelensky was the general producer of the TV channel Inter, controlled by Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash.
Yermak worked in Zelensky’s team ahead of the May 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. The campaign centered on promises to end the years-long conflict in Donbass and was propelled by Zelensky’s portrayal of a fictional Ukrainian President in the political satire series ‘Servant of the People’, produced by his Kvartal 95 studio, which gave the name to his real parliamentary faction.
The International Crisis Group estimates that 14,000 people were killed in Donbass during the so-called Minsk Agreement years 2014-2022. Zelensky pledged to end the killing.
Following Zelensky’s landslide election victory, Yermak, like many of his entertainment business associates, joined the new administration. He became a presidential aide for foreign policy issues, acting as Kiev’s representative in informal diplomatic endeavors.
Most notably, Yermak was involved in clandestine negotiations with the Trump administration on the Burisma affair, a Ukrainian gas company that employed Hunter Biden, and kept in contact with Kurt Volker and Rudy Giuliani. Yermak promised Volker that Zelensky would launch a formal investigation into the company, yet the Ukrainian leader never delivered on the pledge.
Yermak ultimately managed to unseat Zelensky’s first chief-of-staff, Andrey Bogdan, who was a longtime adviser and lawyer to the jailed oligarch Igor Kolomoysky, replacing him in February 2020.
True ruler of Ukraine?
After gaining the top position in the Zelensky presidency, Yermak reportedly gradually expanded his influence, forging informal ties with the country’s key officials, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies, and asserting a firm grip on the country’s parliament.
Numerous media reports, Ukrainian and Western alike, have repeatedly described him as “Zelensky’s right-hand man” and “Ukraine’s real power broker.” Some have claimed that amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Yermak was the true ruler of the country, with no decisions made without his input. The former chief of staff accompanied his nominal boss on most, if not all, overseas trips and key diplomatic events, somewhat sidelining Ukraine’s official diplomats.
Zelensky even appointed Yermak his chief negotiator amid a US-led diplomatic initiative to bring the Ukraine conflict to an end, reportedly in an attempt to protect him from anti-corruption investigators.
The exposure by the Western-backed National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) of a “high-level criminal organization” involving members of Zelensky's inner circle has heavily damaged him internationally, and now his right-hand man.
A criminal ring allegedly led by Timur Mindich, a former business associate of Zelensky's, extorted some $100 million from state-owned nuclear power operator Energoatom, all while the public suffers power blackouts. Mindich somehow managed to flee Ukraine hours before investigators arrived at his apartment in a scene that reportedly sparked the infamous 'golden toilet' image.
Opposition lawmaker Yaroslav Zhelezhnyak has claimed that Yermak was among the individuals captured on incriminating recordings made by NABU. The chief of staff was purportedly “well aware” of the graft scheme and was reportedly known by a code name “Ali Baba” – an apparent wordplay on his given name and patronymic, Andrey Borisovich.
Not too big to fail
Yermak's links with the Energoatom graft affair prompted Ukraine’s opposition to demand his dismissal. A motion to dismiss him in mid-November was backed by MPs from Zelensky's own Servant of the People party, indicating cracks in the comfortable parliamentary majority the Ukrainian leader has so far enjoyed.
According to opposition MP Aleksey Goncharenko, the dissenting members of Servant of the People issued an ultimatum to Zelensky, demanding Yermak’s dismissal or promising to quit the party. Zelensky refused, but once the anti-corruption agents entered his home, amid frontline setbacks and increased international reluctance to continue pouring cash into Kiev, faced the inevitable.
It could be seen as no coincidence that the sudden impetus in peace talks took hold just as fury over the massive corruption racket threatened to turn Zelensky's key international backers against him.
Yermak's resignation only copper-fastens Zelensky's increased isolation.
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