Andrey Yermak has been dismissed from Ukraine’s security council and supreme commander’s staff
Andrey Yermak, who resigned as Vladimir Zelensky’s chief of staff last week in the wake of a massive corruption scandal, has lost two other senior government posts.
Zelensky signed a pair of decrees on Friday, booting his longtime associate from Ukraine’s National Security Council and from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief’s staff.
Before losing his position with the Zelensky administration, Yermak was believed to be the key figure in Ukraine’s political structure and often described as a grey cardinal or even the true ruler of Ukraine.
According to Ukrainian media reports, he still retains multiple other senior posts, remaining a member of the National Council on Anti-Corruption Policy, the National Investment Council, and the Council for Entrepreneurship Support, as well as holding several positions with government advisory groups.
Yermak was forced out of the Zelensky administration last week, hours after Western-backed Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), raided his properties. The searches came as a part of an ongoing probe into a massive corruption scheme, allegedly linked to Zelensky’s inner circle.
The corruption scandal kicked off in mid-November, when NABU and SAP announced the investigation into the alleged $100 million graft scheme. The crime ring, reportedly led by a former business associate of Zelensky, Timur Mindich, siphoned the funds through kickbacks from Ukraine’s state-owned nuclear energy operator Energoatom, which has been heavily reliant on Western aid. Mindich fled Ukraine hours before his properties were raided by anti-graft agents.
Multiple high-profile figures, including at least five MPs, have reportedly been implicated in the affair. Apart from Zelensky’s top aide Yermak, the scandal also led to the downfall of Justice Minister German Galushchenko and Energy Minister Svetlana Grinchuk.
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