Top Zelenskyy aide quits amid Ukraine corruption allegations

Aliaksandr Kudrytski and Volodymyr Verbianyi, Bloomberg News on Nov 28, 2025

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s powerful chief of staff resigned after becoming ensnared in a corruption investigation.

Andriy Yermak has been lead negotiator in peace talks and his decision comes ahead of an expected visit by the U.S. delegation in Kyiv in the coming days.

“There will be a reboot of the Office of the President of Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in a video posted on Telegram. “I am grateful to Andriy for always representing Ukraine’s position in the negotiation track exactly as it should be. It was always a patriotic position. But I want there to be no rumors or speculation.”

The move followed a search of Yermak’s apartment by anti-graft investigators early Friday. While the authorities didn’t explain the raid, it followed news of a widening probe involving several ministers and one of Zelenskyy’s former business partners. Yermak said he was cooperating fully with the investigation.

The dismissal of Zelenskyy’s most trusted and controversial lieutenant takes place at a crucial moment for Ukraine as President Donald Trump renews his diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s full-scale invasion. The U.S. delegation led by Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is due for fresh talks after an initial draft of the plan offered unfavorable terms to the war-ravaged country.

Zelenskyy said he’ll hold consultations Saturday with potential candidates to replace the top aide. He didn’t elaborate on the decision.

Yermak was chief negotiator for talks with the U.S. in Geneva last weekend that helped redraft the proposals to make them more palatable to Kyiv and its western, mainly European allies. The Zelenskyy aide’s towering presence has been a fixture in talks to end Russia’s full-scale invasion, currently well into its fourth year.

But his resignation also highlights the standoff between the president’s inner circle and the country’s anti-graft agencies, which were set up at the insistence of Kyiv’s Western backers.

Meanwhile, there’s growing fatigue among the country’s donors and the risk of shortages of weapons and funding that are crucial for the resistance to Russia. All this is amplified by setbacks on the frontline.

Zelenskyy won power in 2019 with a promise to stamp out the rampant corruption that has plagued Ukraine for decades, and his wartime leadership has been tainted recently by tension over how serious his efforts are to do so.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in a social media post Friday that “the political crisis in Kyiv” is a “fatal combination,” coming at the time when Hungarian leader Viktor Orban is in Moscow to meet Vladimir Putin. Questions have also been growing over the role of U.S. presidential envoy Steve Witkoff after Bloomberg News published transcripts of his call last month with a senior Kremlin official advising him on how to pitch a peace plan for Ukraine to Trump.

Witkoff is due in Moscow next week for talks.

Yermak’s exit is the latest drama since the president unsuccessfully sought to gain control over the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, or NABU, and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, known as SAPO, in July. The attempt drew condemnation from international allies and triggered Ukraine’s largest street protests since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

The agencies responded with a probe targeting Zelenskyy’s allies. The results of a 15-month investigation uncovered that president’s former business partner was allegedly at the center of a large-scale scheme aimed at siphoning money from a state-run energy company.

Some of the funds were to be used to build protection for energy infrastructure against Russian air strikes. Timur Mindich, who helped run a TV production company that catapulted the Ukrainian leader to stardom as a comedian before his presidential bid, fled the country before an attempt to arrest him.

The drive to root out corruption has led to the dismissal of two ministers and implicated former Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov, who denies any wrongdoing.

Pressure has been increasing on Zelenskyy to take swifter action against corruption both from his Western financial backers and domestically.

He faced a wave of public outrage — including from lawmakers in his ruling party — following the scandals and his failed attempt to weaken anti-corruption agencies. Yermak hasn’t been publicly accused of involvement in any wrongdoing. But his position fueled the impression among Ukrainians that he was involved in the decision-making.

Often seen accompanying Zelenskyy on high-profile overseas trips, Yermak amassed outsized influence in the administration, Bloomberg reported in 2024, citing people close to the president’s office. Zelenskyy pushed back against the criticism at the time, describing Yermak as a “powerful manager.”

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(With assistance from Rodney Jefferson.)