The end of an era: Jermak without Kiev and Kiev without Jermak. He is going to the front

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's influential chief of staff Andriy Yermak, a close ally who led Ukraine's negotiating team during the tense peace talks, resigned on 28 November.

He did so just hours after his house was searched by anti-corruption police agents. The wide-ranging investigation into high-level corruption has sparked public outrage and plunged the country's leadership into crisis at a time when Washington is stepping up pressure for Kiev to agree to a deal.

Yermak was reportedly involved in a corruption scheme that diverted funds intended for the construction of defense systems to protect Ukraine's vulnerable energy infrastructure from Russian airstrikes to third parties.

The resigned Jermak was in fact the second most powerful man in Kiev, with influence over the parliament (Verkhovna Rada), the government and many state institutions.

On behalf of Ukraine, Yermak had long rejected the terms proposed by the US - which would have satisfied many of Moscow's territorial and security demands.

The day after Yermak's resignation, Zelensky said he would consider his replacement. "Russia is eager for Ukraine to make mistakes. We won't make any," Zelensky said in a November 28 video call, calling for greater unity.

"Andriy Yermak is so influential and so intimately familiar with so many of the country's problems that it is simply impossible for such a vast corruption system to function without his detailed knowledge," Dariya Kalenukova, director of the Ukrainian non-governmental Centre for Combating Corruption, told the Kyiv Independent.

On the front

On the day of the raid, Yermak confirmed that his apartment had been searched and said he was cooperating with investigators. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Prosecutor's Office for Combating Corruption did not specify what investigation the searches were related to.

The two agencies this month uncovered a wide-ranging investigation into a $100 million bribery scheme at the state-run atomic energy company involving former senior officials and a former business partner of Zelensky's.

Jermak has said he has a clear conscience and that he is going to the front because he is a patriot. Critics, however, talk of calculating: staying at the front will essentially save him from imprisonment if the court decides for it at the request of the investigators.

Major Dmytro Kucharchuk, deputy commander of the 3rd Army Corps, wrote on the social network that it is remarkable how the troops at the front are fighting for Yermak.

"Obviously, not because of his combat experience - everyone wants to touch, at least for a moment, the corrupt source he embodied. So what are you better at? Tolerance takes different forms. This is the worst of them," Kucharchuk said.

Consequences

Yermak's departure from politics - regardless of whether he goes to the front or to detention - may fundamentally affect the course of domestic political governance and Ukraine's position in the negotiations to end the war, as it was Yermak who led the Ukrainian delegation in the peace talks with the White House.

"This is a mini-revolution in the political system and in the system of governance," Volodymyr Fesenko, a Kiev-based political analyst, told the Guardian of Yermak's resignation, adding that it was "Yermak who was a key element in the power structure that Zelenskiy built".

Recall also that on 30 November, the Ukrainian president announced that his new adviser on national reconstruction and investment would be Oxana Markarova, Ukraine's former ambassador to the US. Markarova was replaced by former Justice Minister and Deputy Prime Minister for Eurointegration Olha Stefanyshynova as part of the cabinet reshuffle led by the former head of the President's Office Andriy Yermak.