Ukrainian president’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak confirms search, saying he has offered ‘full cooperation’.
Anticorruption authorities in Ukraine have searched the home of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, as a major corruption investigation continues to roil the country and cause consternation among allies.
Andriy Yermak, who leads Kyiv’s negotiating team concurrently trying to hash out the terms of a United States-proposed plan to end the four-year war with Russia, confirmed his apartment was being searched on Friday and said he was fully cooperating.
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“There are no obstacles for the investigators. They have been given full access to the apartment, and my lawyers are present on-site, cooperating with the law enforcement officers. From my side, there is full cooperation,” he said on social media.
In a joint statement, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office said the searches were “authorised” and linked to an unspecified investigation.
Earlier this month, the two anticorruption agencies unveiled a sweeping investigation into an alleged $100m kickback scheme at the state atomic energy company that ensnared former senior officials and an ex-business partner of Zelenskyy.
Friday’s searches come as the Ukrainian president faces growing pressure from the administration of United States President Donald Trump to agree to Washington’s proposal to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
Ukraine and its European allies had raised concerns that the Trump-backed plan comprised some elements that Russia has been actively pushing for, including that Ukraine cede additional territory and curtail the size of its military.
But a revised proposal has been put forward, and Kyiv has said it is open to negotiations.
The searches are also likely to worsen tensions between Zelenskyy and his political opponents amid the peace negotiations.
In a statement on Thursday, the European Solidarity opposition party criticised Yermak’s role as a negotiator and called on Zelenskyy for “an honest dialogue” with other parties.
‘Black Friday’
Viktor Shlinchak, a political analyst at the Kyiv-based Institute for World Politics, described the searches as a “Black Friday” for Yermak and suggested Zelenskyy may be forced to dismiss him.
“It looks like we may soon have a different head of the negotiating team,” he wrote on Facebook.
Yermak, 54, is Zelenskyy’s most important ally, but a divisive figure in Kyiv, where his opponents say he has accumulated power, gatekeeps access to the president and ruthlessly sidelines critical voices.
A former film producer and copyright lawyer, Yermak came into politics with Zelenskyy in 2019, previously working with him during the now-president’s time as a popular comedian.
He is widely considered the second-most influential man in the country and even sometimes nicknamed “vice president”.
The corruption investigation revolves around an alleged scheme involving Energoatom, the state-run nuclear power company that supplies more than half of the country’s electricity.
“That [case] has been swirling around Ukraine for several weeks now, rocking the government,” Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands reported from Kyiv on Friday. “The allegation is that some $100m … has gone through a kind of laundromat,” he explained.
Anticorruption investigators have said they suspect that Tymur Mindich, a one-time business partner of Zelenskyy, was the plot’s mastermind.
Mindich has fled the country, with any criminal proceedings against him likely to be carried out in absentia. Two top ministers have also resigned over the scandal.
Challands also noted that the inquiry comes after Zelenskyy’s government had tried in July to take away the Ukrainian anticorruption agencies’ independence and place them under the control of his prosecutor-general.
But the Ukrainian leader backtracked after mass public protests.
