Anastasiia Lapatina
Almost three weeks have passed since Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky sacked his controversial chief of staff, Andriy Yermak. Even though his successor remains a mystery, it’s hard to overstate the profound effects the firing is bound to have on the Ukrainian government.
Despite the relative institutional unimportance of the office of the president, Yermak turned it into the single most powerful body of the Ukrainian government. Ever since he became the chief of staff in 2020, Yermak had amassed unprecedented influence over the country’s domestic and foreign policy. He was effectively a co-president, despite not being the country’s prime minister—who is supposed to share the country’s executive power—and despite the growing allegations of his corruption and nepotism, allegations that have come from civil society, from journalists, and from Zelensky’s political opposition.
Zelensky ignored the critics for years, until anti-corruption detectives burst into Yermak’s apartment in central Kyiv on the morning of Nov. 28. They came with a search warrant related to a sprawling corruption case that had already implicated a number of Zelensky’s other close friends. Hours later, Zelensky gave a speech announcing a reset of the president’s office.
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