Pressure mounts on Zelensky over right-hand man
Investigators searched the home of Andriy Yermak at a moment when Ukraine’s president needs his experience dealing with Trump
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s top aide, Andriy Yermak, was in Geneva Sunday negotiating a peace plan. On Friday, Ukraine’s anticorruption agency searched his home, prompting renewed demands from lawmakers to remove him.
Zelensky is under growing pressure over his most trusted adviser at a delicate moment, as he tries to keep the U.S. as an ally. Yermak, who handles Zelensky’s most vital diplomatic tasks, is taking heat over a major scandal. Two cabinet ministers have already been removed from their posts this month, following allegations of a $100 million corruption scheme at the state nuclear energy company.
If Zelensky were to dismiss Yermak, he would lose his foremost emissary to the U.S. since the start of the war. Keeping him could further enrage opponents and even members of his own party in Parliament, known as the Rada.
The National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine announced Friday on social media that it had carried out searches of places linked to Yermak as part of an investigation and that more details would be released later. The agency didn’t say what the investigation was concerning.
Anticorruption authorities have been investigating allegations that Ukrainian officials pressured companies to pay kickbacks for contracts with the state nuclear-energy company, Energoatom. Neither Yermak nor Zelensky have been accused of wrongdoing.
Aides to Zelensky and Yermak didn’t respond to requests for comment. Yermak confirmed on social media that his home had been searched and said he was cooperating with investigators.
Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, former executive director of Transparency International Ukraine, an anticorruption group, and now a lawmaker from an opposition party in the Rada, insisted that Yermak either knew about the alleged corruption scheme, or should have known about it.
“Zelensky must change the head of his office—and the sooner it happens, the less damage it will cause," Yurchyshyn said. “I understand that, personally, it’s very hard for him to make that decision."
Up to now, Zelensky has stuck by Yermak. At a meeting with members of his ruling party in the Rada last week, he said that staffing decisions in his office are up to him, according to one member who was present. In the following days, he sent Yermak to Geneva to meet U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, reaffirming his key role in the administration.
Yermak and Zelensky met in the early 2010s, when they were both in show business. Zelensky, a comedian and TV actor, was the top producer at a Ukrainian TV channel. Yermak was an entertainment lawyer who worked for the country’s first registered law firm.
They struck up a friendship, and when Zelensky won the presidency in 2019, he appointed Yermak as a senior adviser and promoted him to chief of staff in February 2020. He usually stands beside Zelensky in photos, towering over the president and often sporting the same dark green military-esque clothing.
Many Western officials view Yermak with a grudging respect. They say he is relentlessly hardworking and that he speaks in sync with Zelensky. But they also say he can be difficult—stubborn, prone to drone on in half-hour monologues, and at times naive about geopolitics.
“I think people respect Yermak because they know he is powerful, and they know he has Zelensky’s ear," said Kurt Volker, who served as Trump’s envoy for Ukraine during his first term. “They don’t necessarily like him, because he can be difficult to work with and very, very demanding, very pushy."
Write to Ian Lovett at ian.lovett@wsj.com, Robbie Gramer at robbie.gramer@wsj.com and Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com
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