Who is Andriy Yermak, Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff resigns as Ukraine’s biggest corruption probe widen

Zelenskyy said that “to preserve our internal strength, there must be no reasons to be distracted at anything else except for defense of Ukraine. I don’t want anybody to be questioning Ukraine, and that’s why we have today’s decisions.”

Yermak, who was Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, is often described as the second most influential figure in Ukraine.

The raid comes at a highly sensitive moment. Just over a week ago, the expanding corruption case, centred on an alleged kickback scheme involving the state nuclear energy firm, was threatening to destabilise Zelenskyy’s administration.

Who is Andriy Yermak ?

Yermak, once a film producer and intellectual property lawyer, has long been one of President Zelenskyy’s closest confidants, emerging during the war as a formidable political enforcer in Kyiv. Known for sidelining officials who strayed from the president’s line or grew too popular, he became a dominant figure in Ukraine’s power structure.

His influence, however, now sits under a cloud. After the major corruption investigation broke open earlier this month, Yermak vanished from public view for nearly five days, an unusually long silence from a figure typically front and centre. He resurfaced only as Ukraine began grappling with a US peace proposal, leading last week’s talks in Geneva with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as per a report by NYT.

But the widening graft probe continues to shadow the negotiations. Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s second representative in the Geneva talks, was questioned by detectives this week after returning to Kyiv.

Meanwhile, the diplomatic process itself has slowed. Peace discussions involving the US, Ukraine, Russia and European partners have stalled amid Ukraine’s domestic turmoil. Russia continues to demand territorial concessions as the price of any agreement, a condition Yermak rejected outright in an interview with The Atlantic, insisting Zelenskyy would never approve a deal that involved giving up Ukrainian land.