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.
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