The former head of the Ukrainian president’s office, Andriy Yermak, said he was “going to the front” in a cryptic message ob Friday after his shock resignation.
Yermak, widely considered the second most powerful man in Ukraine, went from the heights of his power to resigning in disgrace over the course of a few days, a major turnaround for the so-called “Green Cardinal.” On Friday evening, shortly after his resignation, the Ukrainian political heavyweight told the New York Post in a cryptic text message that he was headed for the front lines in the war with Russia.
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“I’m going to the front and am prepared for any reprisals,” he told the outlet in an impassioned text message. “I am an honest and decent person.”
“I served Ukraine and was in Kyiv on February 24, [2022],” he wrote. “Maybe we’ll see each other again. Glory to Ukraine.”
Yermak bemoaned his situation and said his dramatic next step was intended to make things easier for his longtime ally, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He also said he may not be able to answer calls for a while.
“I’ve been desecrated, and my dignity hasn’t been protected, despite having been in Kyiv since February 24, 202[2],” he said. “Therefore, I don’t want to create problems for Zelensky; I’m going to the front.
“I’m disgusted by the filth directed at me, and even more disgusted by the lack of support from those who know the truth,” Yermak added.
Yermak has gone silent on his usually active Telegram, with his final post being released shortly before his resignation, affirming his willingness to cooperate with investigators.
Zelensky’s office was rocked by its greatest domestic scandal beginning on Nov. 10, 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, was 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, dubbed “Mindichgate,” supposedly implicated many within Zelensky’s inner circle, and soon led to finger-pointing against Yermak.
For a few weeks, it seemed the Green Cardinal would be able to weather the scandal after Zelensky publicly stood by him. The president deflected blame and, on Nov. 22, implored Ukrainians to “Stop the infighting” and “political games.” His ironclad support came as no surprise — Zelensky famously declared in June 2021, when calls first grew for Yermak’s firing, that his top ally “came with me, he will go with me.”
Yermak’s fortunes changed for the worse this week when NABU and SAPO raided his apartment, pushing him to resign on Friday. His resignation strips Zelensky of his closest friend and ally at a time of unprecedented pressure to reach a settlement to end the war with Russia.
Michael Bociurkiw, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, told NBC News on Saturday that Yermak’s resignation comes at a “very bad time, because we’re really at a possible tipping point where you know what Ukraine is demanding may not be granted or taken into consideration.”
“None of us really know what Zelensky is like operating solo, because he never has,” he added.
Kyiv-based political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko described Yermak’s resignation as a “mini revolution in the political system and the governance system.”
“Yermak was the key element in the system of power that Zelensky had built,” he told the Guardian.
Zelensky and Yermak have been inseparable for the former’s entire career, going back to Yermak’s work as the former comedian’s producer.
Although it is not enshrined in the Ukrainian Constitution, the position of head of the Office of the President, which provided Yermak with unchecked power, has ample historical precedent. Dmitry Tabachnik and Viktor Medvechuk played this role for former President Leonid Kuchma; Viktor Baloga for former President Viktor Yushchenko; Sergei Levochkin for former President Viktor Yanukovych; and Boris Lozhkin for former President Petro Poroshenko. All likewise formed reputations as schemers, many of them broadly unpopular.
Yermak’s departure could have another major negative effect aside from the loss of his abilities. The widespread hatred of Yermak shielded Zelensky from much fallout, in a modern incarnation of the “good tsar, bad boyars” phenomenon. The president now has no shield from backlash against unpopular policies, making him more politically vulnerable.
Yermak’s story in Ukraine’s halls of power may not be over, however. Several analysts believe the Green Cardinal is so powerful that he could continue to rule from the shadows instead.
Peter Korotaev, a Ukrainian writer who has extensively documented Yermak’s rise and the political intrigue surrounding him on his Events in Ukraine Substack, told the Washington Examiner on Nov. 18 that his ousting was possible, though with a catch.
“If Yermak goes, I think he will still remain quite influential. The replacement will be some sort of irrelevant individual that Yermak himself reared. Yermak could well be just as influential as before, but behind the scenes, like Mindich was, without ever having a government post,” Korotaev said.
“And in any case, the attempt to blame everything on Zelensky’s advisers obviously excuses the president. He chose and trusts Yermak, Mindich to surround him of his own will,” he added.
Ukrainian journalist Iuliia Mendel, a former advisor to Zelensky, voiced the same opinion to Politico, speaking after Yermak’s resignation.
“Yermak might just stay the shadow puppeteer,” she said.
