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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday evening that his powerful and polarising chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, had resigned after anti-corruption officials raided his residence and offices earlier in the day.
In an evening address, Zelenskyy said he was “grateful to Andriy for always presenting the Ukrainian position in the negotiation track exactly as it should be”, referring to Yermak’s key role in peace talks.
The exit of Zelenskyy’s closest confidant is likely to further weaken Zelenskyy at a pivotal moment for Ukraine, as he seeks to reassure western partners that he is rooting out entrenched corruption while pressing for military assistance.
The president said that Ukraine now needed “unity”, adding that “there should be no reason to be distracted by anything other than defending Ukraine”. He vowed to “reboot” his presidential office.
Zelenskyy is also facing pressure to sign a peace deal pushed by Donald Trump. Yermak had been appointed by the Ukrainian president just over a week ago to lead the delegation involved in peace talks with the US and Russia.
According to a person familiar with the matter, Yermak had been planning to fly to Miami this weekend to hold talks with Trump’s team about next steps in preparing a peace deal. That meeting has now been called off.
Zelenskyy said on Friday the peace talks delegation would now be led by the secretary of the National Security and Defence Council, Rustem Umerov, along with the chief of the General Staff, Andriy Hnatov, and representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and intelligence agencies.
The president also confirmed that he had accepted Yermak’s resignation from the role he had held since 2020, and in which he had become perhaps the most powerful unelected political figure in Ukraine’s history.
Ukrainians and western officials have likened Yermak to a vice-president, even saying that he had behaved like a head of state, drafting peace plans, directing diplomacy, handpicking cabinet officials and taking military decisions.
A western ambassador in July described Yermak’s role to the Financial Times bluntly: “He’s the president, the prime minister, the foreign minister . . . all the ministers put together.”
Calls for Yermak’s resignation had grown louder after he was found to have orchestrated an attempt by the president’s office in July to strip the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (Nabu) and Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (Sapo) of their independence.
Yermak placed the bodies under the control of Zelenskyy’s handpicked prosecutor-general.
The move against the independent agencies sparked the biggest protests in Ukraine since the full-scale war began in 2022, forcing Zelenskyy to backtrack.
About a dozen officials from Nabu and Sapo had conducted the search of Yermak’s residence and office before dawn on Friday in Kyiv’s highly secure government quarter, the agencies said in a joint statement.
The raid follows other searches related to a major corruption probe called “Operation Midas” that has embroiled Zelenskyy’s cabinet, toppled several senior government officials and led to a warrant for the arrest of the president’s former business partner, who has fled the country.
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