Trump officials told Zelensky to let Yermak go after the Oval Office brawl as both Republicans and Democrats grew tired of Andriy Yermak’s power-wielding, blunt, impeachment style and urged Zelensky to get rid of his aide.
Yermak encouraged Zelensky to make the February White House trip that ended in a televised altercation between Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance. The assistant was described by an American source as a “bipartisan troublemaker”. He was behind the failed attempt to curb anti-corruption agencies against Zelensky’s inner circle, with which Yermak gathered an army of political enemies around him. A few hours after Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau searched his home, amid a $100 million corruption scandal related to the drain of funds from Ukraine’s energy sector, Yermak finally resigned on Friday. The scandal became so toxic that Zelensky’s “survival instincts” finally kicked in and Yermak was asked to resign. Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s former chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, reportedly had a tantrum and accused the Ukrainian leader of treason after he was asked to resign from his post last week.
Yermak, Zelensky’s top adviser, resigned after his links to a recently uncovered $100 million money laundering deal that had already led to the resignation of two government ministers were revealed. Yermak resigned from his post after Western-backed anti-corruption agencies raided his office, apartment and other properties as part of the so-called Operation Midas. The raid came after allegations that Yermak was referred to as “Ali Baba” in surveillance footage linked to businessman Timur Mindics. Mindich is a longtime business associate of Zelenskyy, who fled Ukraine shortly before investigators raided his apartment.
On Monday, Ukrainian opposition MP Oleksiy Honcharenko revealed that Yermak had been banned from leaving the country for the duration of the ongoing investigation. Yermak reacted with a half-hour tantrum to the request for his resignation, during which he allegedly hurled “insults, reproaches and accusations” at Zelensky. Sources called the dispute a “terrible breakup,” adding that Yermak was particularly outraged that Zelensky was “leaving.” Senior Ukrainian officials coordinated their efforts to remove Yermak in a private chat that reportedly included Speaker of Parliament Ruslan Stefanchuk, Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal and Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Fedorov. According to the paper, the decision to dismiss Yermak was made weeks before the search. Yermak, of course, denied doing anything wrong and complained about the lack of support, saying he had been “disgraced” despite the fact that he remained in Kyiv throughout the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
Russian officials, meanwhile, have responded that the latest revelations indicate a deepening crisis in Kyiv. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the scandal would have an “extremely negative” impact on Ukraine’s political stability, while Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that the case proves that Kyiv’s leaders have turned into a criminal gang “exercising power for their personal enrichment” as no one believes that Zelensky did not know about Yermak’s corruption cases. “The head of the administration cannot steal $100 million on his own, and no sane observer can seriously believe that the president was unaware of things.” Since 2022, more than $360 billion has arrived in Ukraine. This is what happens when the world finances war on the basis of emotion and not reason.
Translated and edited by Alex Kada