Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is under heavy domestic and international pressure to fire his right-hand man, head of the Ukrainian president’s office, Andriy Yermak, after a massive corruption scandal.

Zelensky’s government is embroiled in one of its worst domestic crises since the Russian invasion in February 2022, following accusations by Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, that Timur Mindich, a close ally of Zelensky, is involved in large-scale corruption. Mindich and his associates were accused of siphoning $100 million in revenue from Energoatom, the state nuclear energy company. The affair, now dubbed “Mindichgate,” is threatening a man so powerful that analysts have drawn historical parallels with Cardinal Richelieu, a figure from the French King Louis XIII’s era.