Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has accepted the resignation of Andriy Yermak, his long-time chief of staff and the power behind the throne, after anti-corruption investigators raided his home and office on November 28.

Yermak is the latest figure from Zelenskiy’s inner circle to fall in the expanding Energoatom corruption scandal, which became public on November 10, where friends of the president were implicated in a kickback scheme worth $100mn.

At the centre of the scandal is Timur Mindich, a co-founder of Zelenskiy’s pre-war production company Kvartal 95, who was tipped off of a National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) investigation and skipped the country hours before his home and office were raided where a solid gold toilet was discovered as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars and euros in cash.

Mindich and his co-conspirator Slava Tsukerman are believed to be sheltering in Israel, which doesn’t extradite its citizens.

The EU warned Bankova (Ukraine’s equivalent of the Kremlin) the same day that it could not join the EU unless it effectively cleared out corruption from government.

With peace talks on going, the corruption scandal has been extremely damaging and putting additional pressure on the Zelenskiy administration to come to terms with the Kremlin as it has undermined support in Brussels. Yermak fell on his sword in part not to undermine Kyiv’s effort to persuade Brussels to continue its support at a time when the Trump administration has more or less fully withdrawn.

"I want there to be no rumours or speculation. Regarding the new head of the office, tomorrow I will hold consultations with those who could lead this institution," Zelenskiy said in a video address confirming Yermak’s departure.

Yermak, who has headed the Office of the President since Zelenskiy’s election in 2019, submitted his resignation after NABU searched his residence housed on the presidential compound on Bankova street in central Kyiv.

Verkhovna Rada member Yaroslav Zheleznyak reported that NABU is preparing formal charges against Yermak in connection with the case.

Yermak's departure will be a personal blow to Zelenskiy who relied on him heavily to run the government and take on important tasks. The president recently appointed Yermak to lead negotiations in Washington concerning the US 28-point peace plan (28PPP).

Reuters reported that Yermak’s resignation could bolster Zelenskiy’s standing among international partners and domestic audiences, who are demanding tough action as a result of the scandal. The EU spin is that the corruption scandal is a good thing as it shows Ukraine has effective anti-corruption organs that are not afraid to go after people in the president’s inner circle – something that could never happen in Russia.

The scandal has already claimed two ministers and several lower level functionaries connected to the scheme have been arrested. Local press reports that up to 40 people from the administration might have been beneficiaries of the scheme.

The departure of Yermak will also be welcomed by members of Zelenskiy’s own party, Servant of the People, who have been complaining that Yermak has too much power. An éminence grise, Yermak runs a very large informal network of contacts and exercises a great deal of control behind the scenes, according to multiple reports.

In July 2025, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal was replaced by Yulia Svyrydenko, widely seen as closely aligned with Yermak. She served as his deputy from 2020 to 2021 and her appointment consolidated Yermak’s control over government.

Yermak has also been accused of gradually pushing aside ex-Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, eventually replacing him in 2024 with Andriy Sybiha, who is another former Yermak’s deputy.

But while Zelenskiy was heavily on Yermak to implement his orders, Yermak was totally dependent on Zelenskiy for power, having no political base of his own. Yermak is deeply unpopular in Ukraine. A poll in March by the Razumkov Center, a Ukrainian think tank, showed 60% percent of the respondents trusted Mr. Zelensky, but only 17.5% trusted Yermak.

 

Recently calls for Zelenskiy to sack Yermak from within his own party have risen as the president comes under increasing pressure to dump his deputy.

The White House will be pleased with Yermak’s departure where he is not well liked. Politico reported in June 2025 that US officials “found Yermak to be uninformed about US politics, abrasive and overly demanding.” He “struggled to secure meetings with senior Trump administration officials,” with several meetings cancelled. One Trump administration source described him as a “bipartisan irritator.”

Yet Zelenskiy kept him on as Ukraine’s chief negotiator during its existential war, because there’s no one else who can execute Zelenskyy’s wishes domestically using the system Yermak helped build.

Zelenskiy came in for heavy criticism after he rushed through the Law 12414 in July that would have put NABU and its sister anti-corruption organisation, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) under his direct control, gutting Ukraine’s anti-corruption reforms. That decision sparked the first anti-government demonstrations since the start of the war and Zelenskiy quickly backed down.

However, the presidential administration has continued to harass NABU and the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), which is also under the president’s direct control, has been running raids and investigations on NABU officers since.

After the “Midas” scandal broke, so dubbed due to the golden toilet, Yermak reportedly ordered the SBU to prepare a notice of suspicion charge sheet against the head of the SAPO, Oleksandr Klymenko, Ukrainska Pravda reported on November 24.

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Zelenskiy’s own name has come up repeatedly in the evidence gathered by NABU, but no accusations have yet been made against him personally. The agency warned the scandal could also tarnish the president’s own image.

The Kremlin seized on the news, with Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov claiming that the corruption scandal was "shaking the republic's political system in all directions." Peskov added that the consequences of the investigation would be “extremely negative” for Ukraine.