Ukraine’s capital faced a night of attacks on Friday to yesterday, hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy removed his chief of staff and top negotiator following a raid on Andriy Yermak’s house as part of a sweeping corruption probe.
Yermak’s removal dealt a serious blow to Zelenskiy, who faces a mounting Russian offensive in the east as Washington peddles a plan to end the war that Kyiv fears would hand big concessions to Moscow.
Ukrainian negotiators are expected in the US this weekend for talks on the US plan to end the war. Yermak, 54, was supposed to have negotiated on behalf of Ukraine at the talks and Zelenskiy said he would hold consultations yesterday over a replacement for him.
Photo: EPA
Russian drones struck Kyiv, killing at least two people, and causing damage and massive power cuts in the capital, officials said.
About a dozen people were wounded, as residential buildings were hit in several districts, they said.
Leading the talks this weekend is now Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov, according to two senior Ukrainian officials, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Just last week, Zelenskiy had named Yermak as Ukraine’s top negotiator in a vote of confidence, despite growing pressure from opposition figures to remove the chief of staff.
On Friday, Zelenskiy announced in a video address: “The Office of the President of Ukraine will be reorganized. The head of the office, Andriy Yermak, has submitted his resignation.”
Minutes later, Zelenskiy signed a decree “to dismiss” Yermak.
On Friday, investigators from the Ukrainian National Anti-Corruption Agency (NABU) said it and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SPO) had raided Yermak’s apartment as part of an investigation.
They did not say what it was about, and Yermak said he was cooperating fully.
Yermak has been accused of involvement in a US$100 million kickback scheme in the strategic energy sector, uncovered by investigators earlier this month.
The case triggered widespread public anger at a time when Russia is hammering Ukraine’s power grid, causing blackouts and threatening winter heating outages.
In the face of the scandal, Zelenskiy sought to rally the population on Friday.
“If we lose our unity, we risk losing everything: ourselves, Ukraine, our future,” he said in the address.
Yermak was Zelenskiy’s most important ally, but in Kyiv, his opponents say he has accumulated power, gate-keeps access to the president and ruthlessly sidelines critical voices.
A former film producer and copyright lawyer, he came into politics with Zelenskiy in 2019, having previously worked with the now-president during his time as a comedian.
Yermak was widely considered the second-most influential man in the country and even sometimes nicknamed “vice president.”
“Yermak doesn’t allow anyone to get to Zelenskiy except loyal people,” a former senior official who worked with Zelenskiy and Yermak told reporters, describing him as “super paranoid.”
“He definitely tries to influence almost every decision,” they added.
A senior source in Zelenskiy’s party said Yermak’s influence over the president was akin to “hypnosis.”
Speaking after the raid on Yermak, the EU backed the work of Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies.
“We have a lot of respect for those investigations which show that the anti-corruption bodies in Ukraine are doing their work,” said European Commission spokeswoman Paula Pinho.
Zelenskiy had in the summer tried to strip the independence of NABU and SPO, triggering rare wartime protests and forcing him to walk back the decision after criticism from the EU.
IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST: Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu said the strengthening of military facilities would help to maintain security in the Taiwan Strait Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi, visiting a military base close to Taiwan, said plans to deploy missiles to the post would move forward as tensions smolder between Tokyo and Beijing. “The deployment can help lower the chance of an armed attack on our country,” Koizumi told reporters on Sunday as he wrapped up his first trip to the base on the southern Japanese island of Yonaguni. “The view that it will heighten regional tensions is not accurate.” Former Japanese minister of defense Gen Nakatani in January said that Tokyo wanted to base Type 03 Chu-SAM missiles on Yonaguni, but little progress
‘BEST RESULT’: Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu said that Donald Trump’s silence on the issue signaled that Taiwan was not being treated as a bargaining chip “Reunification” with China is “not an option” for Taiwan, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday, after Chinese state media reported that the issue was brought up in a telephone call between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and US President Donald Trump. “We have noted this significant international exchange, but we must reiterate that the Republic of China (Taiwan) is a fully sovereign and independent country,” Cho said at the legislature when reporters asked him about the issue. “The 23 million people of Taiwan do not have a ‘reunification’ option. This is very clear. Taiwan is the world’s Taiwan,” Cho said. Trump and Xi
NO CHANGES: A Japanese spokesperson said that Tokyo remains consistent and open for dialogue, while Beijing has canceled diplomatic engagements A Japanese official blasted China’s claims that Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has altered Japan’s position on a Taiwan crisis as “entirely baseless,” calling for more dialogue to stop ties between Asia’s top economies from spiraling. China vowed to take resolute self-defense against Japan if it “dared to intervene militarily in the Taiwan Strait” in a letter delivered Friday to the UN. “I’m aware of this letter,” said Maki Kobayashi, a senior Japanese government spokeswoman. “The claim our country has altered its position is entirely baseless,” she said on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Johannesburg on Saturday. The Chinese Ministry
RECOGNITION: It was important that the resolution said ‘Taiwanese nationals,’ rather than ‘residents’ or ‘people,’ as it asserted Taiwan’s subjectivity, Shen said The Liberal International, a global alliance of liberal and progressive democratic political parties, yesterday unanimously passed a resolution proposed by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Fan Yun (范雲) to condemn China’s transnational repression against Taiwanese. The motion was passed on the first day of the Liberal International’s 209th Executive Committee Meeting in The Hague, Netherlands. Fan, who is the Liberal International’s vice president and attending on behalf of the DPP, proposed an emergency resolution to support DPP Legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋) and counter transnational repression. China’s Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau late last month listed Shen as “wanted” for crimes of “separatism” for
RSS