Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has fired his chief of staff and replaced him with Andriy Yermak, an aide linked to President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.
The presidential decrees dismissing Andriy Bohdan and replacing him with Yermak were signed on Tuesday and released to the public. It is not clear what was behind the executive shake-up.
Testimony during Trump’s impeachment trial revealed that Giuliani and Yermak met last summer, and Giuliani “strongly” urged Yermak, then a Zelensky adviser, to investigate Joe Biden and his son’s connections to Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.
Bohdan was initially appointed to the chief of staff role in May after Zelensky beat incumbent President Petro Poroshenko by running on an anti-corruption platform. His appointment was controversial because he was once the lawyer for a tycoon who fled Ukraine to avoid criminal charges. The tycoon, Ihor Kolomoisky, returned to the country just days before Zelensky was sworn into office.
Poroshenko’s government had accused Kolomoisky of stealing $5.5 billion, and some in the country believed that Kolomoisky had returned so that he could influence the newly elected Zelensky through Bohdan.
