Kyiv, Ukraine – With his bear-like look and immense clout, Andriy Yermak towered over Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for years – literally and figuratively.
A former copyright lawyer who collaborated with District 95, a comic troupe that propelled Zelenskyy to stardom, the 54-year-old Yermak became Ukraine’s “grey cardinal” after the former comedian won the 2019 presidential vote.
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While chief of Zelenskyy’s staff, Yermak played an outsized role – he was widely considered as vice president and vice prime minister. He was a top peace negotiator and made strategic decisions about the war with Russia that led to disastrous miscalculations and losses, according to a four-star general.
Yermak “formed an entire system of appointing people in state administration, ministries and military agencies”, Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of Ukraine’s general staff of armed forces, told Al Jazeera.
Such concentration of power turned Yermak into a seemingly unsinkable, Machiavellian figure as he gained notoriety among Ukrainian officials and top brass, Western leaders and diplomats for his abrasive manners, reluctance to compromise and heavy-handed handling of subordinates.
And yet, Yermak’s team of negotiators managed to convince Washington to remove some of the most contentious parts of the 28-point peace plan that many in Ukraine and the West called a carbon copy of the Kremlin’s wish list.
But on Friday, Zelenskyy fired Yermak – after months of Western pressure and speculation about his role in a $100m corruption scandal, an hours-long search of his apartment and a “30-minute-long tantrum with cursing, reproaches and accusations”, according to a Ukrainian daily.
“Until the last minute, Yermak didn’t believe that the First One [Zelenskyy] will have him sacked,” a government source told the Pravda outlet.
The firing followed a consensus among key political figures, even the ones appointed by Yermak, the daily reported.
Zelenskyy diplomatically called the sacking a “resignation”.
“I’m grateful to Andriy for always representing Ukraine’s position in the negotiation track exactly the way it should be represented,” he said in a video address.
Hours later, Yermak made a single statement most likely aimed at United States President Donald Trump.
“I’m going to the front[line] and am prepared for any reprisals. I am an honest and decent person,” he said in a text message in English sent to a reporter with the New York Post, reportedly Trump’s favourite newspaper.
Some Ukrainians are still deeply pessimistic about the political games amid daily blackouts, Russian air raids, soaring prices and hopelessness about the war’s end.
“Corruption is a hydra,” said Taras Tymoshchuk, a 43-year-old retired serviceman, who suffered injuries and contusions while fighting pro-Russian separatists in the eastern region of Donbas between 2015 and 2017.
“Yermak is the head we all knew. He’s been cut off, but many more will grow in his place,” he told Al Jazeera.
But another disgraced figure – Tetiana Chornovol, an ex-lawmaker and journalist who enlisted after being charged with arson and premeditated murder – said she would let Yermak join her small squad as a drone operator.
During the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution, Chornovol assaulted pro-Russian figures, led protesters to seize the city hall and was said to have incited them to throw Molotov cocktails into an office of ex-President Victor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, according to Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigations. A 57-year-old IT expert suffocated in the smoke.
“He’ll be a regular fighter without a past,” Chornovol wrote of Yermik on Facebook on Saturday.
However, self-banishment to the front line does not make Yermak immune to the consequences that may stem from a huge investigation into corruption schemes around the state-controlled nuclear power monopoly.
Now, Ukraine and its allies are pondering the aftermath of Yermak’s dismissal, while speculating over his successor.
“The replacement will be quite painful,” Romanenko said.
Yermak was widely blamed for mismanaging Kyiv’s talks with Moscow before the full-scale invasion in 2022 – and for downplaying the invasion that, as he reportedly said, he “didn’t believe would really happen”.
Yermak’s “defence plans were largely unrealistic and have not been implemented”, Romanenko said.
Yermak also opposed drastic steps such as the huge mobilisation of all men of fighting age and the imposition of martial law that would “put the economy on a wartime track”, Romanenko said.
Yermak’s replacement should be proposed by the president but voted in by Parliament.
There’s already a list of possible candidates – Deputy Prime Minister Mikhaylo Fyodorov, Defence Minister Denys Shmyhal and Deputy Foreign Minister Serhiy Kyslytsya.
Zelenskyy may also appoint a political dark horse, an unknown figure with a military background and front-line experience, to cheer up top brass and average servicemen.
On Saturday, Zelenskyy reportedly conferred with the heads of military and intelligence agencies – and Pavlo Palisa, 40, a decorated colonel who graduated from a US military college in 2022, fought in the months-long battle for the eastern town of Bakhmut and became Yermak’s deputy in November 2024.
None of Yermak’s possible successors will have his reputation, notoriety and years-long personal relations with the president – and none is likely to regain his clout.
‘Corruption track extremely useful to US’
However, the dismissal will benefit Kyiv in the coming weeks amid resumed peace talks as Washington has lost an ace up its sleeve – Yermak’s presumed involvement in corruption schemes involving multi-billion Western aid.
“The corruption track in Ukraine was extremely useful to the United States from the viewpoint of pressuring Zelenskyy personally,” Kyiv-based analyst Ihar Tyshkevich told Al Jazeera.
Zelenskyy considered Yermak an irreplaceable ally and enforcer of his will – and Washington could have used it to demand political concessions in exchange for keeping him, Tyshkevich said.
Yermak’s resignation removes the “blackmail format” while Ukrainian negotiators could say that Kyiv is about to restructure the decision-making process, he said.
Some Western partners were also “tense” about Yermak’s decisions that sidelined Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he said.
“As paradoxical as it sounds, in the short-term perspective, [Yermak’s resignation] certainly strengthens Zelenskyy,” Tyshkevich said.
But by early 2026, whoever replaces Yermak will have to make “several right decisions” to further strengthen Zelenskyy, he said.
For now, the president faces an immediate dilemma.
He could opt to keep the highly personalised system Yermak built, or dismantle it to allow figures once opposed to Yermak to work closer with Zelenskyy, Tyshkevich said.
Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party formally dominates the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s lower house of parliament, but there is infighting and squabbles.
