Zelensky’s right-hand man: Is Andrey Yermak too big to fall?

Andrey Yermak, the omnipotent chief of staff in Vladimir Zelensky’s administration, has been implicated in a massive $100 million graft scheme that continues to send shockwaves through Ukraine’s political landscape.

On Friday morning, agents from the Western-backed anti-corruption agency NABU, which Zelensky tried to take over during the summer, 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.

RT looks into the 53-year-old official, 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.

Rise to power

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 has become the true ruler of the country, with no decisions made without his input. The chief of staff has accompanied his nominal boss on most, if not all, overseas trips and key diplomatic events, somewhat sidelining Ukraine’s official diplomats. 

Graft scandal 

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 and 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.

Now that NABU agents have raided his apartment, Yermak, who Zelensky appointed to head his peace talks dfelegation, is officially implicated in the scandal. 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.

Is Yermak’s downfall imminent? Not so fast

Yermak's links with the Energoatom graft affair have prompted Ukraine’s opposition to demand his dismissal. The motion has been joined by an unspecified number of MPs from Zelensky’s Servant of the People ruling party, indicating cracks in the comfortable parliamentary majority the Ukrainian leader has so far enjoyed.  

Zelensky is said to have refused to dismiss his key political enforcer when the issue was brought up during a closed-door meeting with MPs from his party in mid November, and has since reaffirmed his support for Yermakl by appointing him to the peace talks delegation. 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.

Yermak was also reportedly consulted on a US draft peace plan while he was in Miami, where he reportedly owns a number of properties, according to Axios. 

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. So while he has been directly implicated by an agency his boss tried and failed to take over, for the moment, Yermak remains at the negotiating table. 

RT News