Kyiv, Ukraine – With his bear-like appearance and immense influence, Andriy Yermak Literally and figuratively – weighed on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for years.
A former copyright lawyer who collaborated with District 95, the comic troupe that propelled Zelensky to stardom, Yermak, 54, became Ukraine’s “gray cardinal” after the former comedian won the 2019 presidential vote.
Recommended stories
4 List of itemsEnd of list
As Zelensky’s chief of staff, Yermak played a major role – he was considered the vice president and deputy prime minister. According to the four-star general, he was the top peace negotiator and made strategic decisions about the war with Russia that led to disastrous miscalculations and losses.
Yermak “created a whole system of appointing people to state administrations, ministries and military agencies”, Ihor Romanenko, former deputy chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, told Al Jazeera.
Such concentration of power turned Yermak into an intractable, Machiavellian figure as he gained notoriety among Ukrainian officials and top brass, Western leaders and diplomats for his abusive behavior, reluctance to compromise, and heavy-handed handling of subordinates.
And yet, Yermak’s team of negotiators convinced Washington to remove some of Washington’s most controversial parts. 28-point peace plan Ukraine and many in the West called it a carbon copy of the Kremlin’s wish list.
But on Friday, Zelensky fired Yermak – after months of Western pressure and speculation about his role in a $100 million corruption scandal. ScamAn hour-long search of his apartment and “a 30-minute ordeal with curses, insults and accusations”, according to a Ukrainian daily.
“Until the last moment, Yermak did not believe that the first one (Zelensky) would remove him,” a government source told the Pravda outlet.
The firing drew consensus among prominent political figures, even those appointed by Yermak, the daily reported.
Zelensky diplomatically called the removal a “resignation”.
“I am grateful to Andriy for representing Ukraine in the way it should always be represented in the negotiation track,” he said in a video address.
A few hours later, Yermak made a single statement, presumably aimed at United States President Donald Trump.
“I’m going to the front (of the line) and ready for any change. I’m an honest and decent person,” he said in a text message in English to a reporter from the New York Post, Trump’s favorite newspaper.
Amid daily blackouts, Russian airstrikes, rising prices and hopelessness, some Ukrainians are still deeply pessimistic about political games. The end of the war.
“Corruption This is a hydra,” said Taras Tymoshchuk, a 43-year-old retired worker who was injured and wounded fighting pro-Russian separatists in the eastern region of Donbass between 2015 and 2017.
“Yermak was the head we all knew. He has been cut off, but many more will grow in his place,” he told Al Jazeera.
But another abusive person – Tetiana ChornovolThe former MP and journalist who enlisted after being charged with arson and premeditated murder – said she would let Yermak join her small squad as a drone operator.
During the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, Chornovol attacked pro-Russian figures, prompting protesters to seize city hall and throw Molotov cocktails at former president Viktor Yanukovych’s party office, according to Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigative. A 57-year-old IT expert suffocated in the smoke.
“He will be a regular fighter with no past,” Chornovol wrote of Yermic on Facebook on Saturday.
However, banishing himself to the front line does not shield Yermak from the consequences of a major investigation into corruption schemes surrounding the state-controlled nuclear power monopoly.
Now, Ukraine and its allies are speculating about Yermak’s successor after his dismissal.
“The replacement will be very painful,” Romanenko said.
Yermak has been widely blamed for mismanaging Kiev’s talks with Moscow ahead of a full-scale invasion in 2022 – and for undermining an invasion he “didn’t really believe would happen”, as he put it.
Yermak’s “defense plans were largely unrealistic and were not implemented”, Romanenko said.
Yermak opposed draconian measures such as the massive roundup of all men of fighting age and the imposition of martial law that would “bring the economy onto a wartime path”, Romanenko said.
Yermak’s replacement must be proposed by the president but voted on by parliament.
A list of possible candidates is already available – Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fyodorov, Defense Minister Denis Schmihl and Deputy Foreign Minister Serhii Kislius.
Zelensky could also hire a political dark horse, an unknown person with a military background and front-line experience, to please the top brass and average soldiers.
On Saturday, Zelensky visited the heads of the military and intelligence agencies – and Pavlo Palisa, 40, a decorated colonel who graduated from the US Military College in 2022, fought in the months-long battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut and became Yermak’s deputy in November 2024.
None of Yermak’s potential successors will have the reputation, notoriety and years of personal ties to the president — and none are likely to regain his influence.
‘Tracking corruption is very useful for America’
However, the sacking will benefit Kiev in the resumption of peace negotiations because Washington has lost its sleeve – Yermak’s involvement in corruption schemes involving billions in Western aid.
“The corruption trail in Ukraine was extremely useful for the United States from the point of view of putting pressure on Zelensky personally,” Kiev-based analyst Ihar Tishkevich told Al Jazeera.
Zelensky considered Yermak an irreplaceable ally and enforcer of his will — and Washington could have used him to demand political concessions in exchange for keeping him, Tishkevich said.
Yermak’s resignation removed the “blackmail form” while Ukrainian negotiators could say Kiev was going to restructure the decision-making process, he said.
Some Western partners were also “stressed” by Yermak’s decisions to sideline Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he said.
“As paradoxical as it sounds, from a short-term perspective, (Yermak’s resignation) certainly strengthens Zelensky,” Tishkevich said.
But in early 2026, whoever replaces Yermak will have to make “many correct decisions” to further strengthen Zelensky, he said.
Currently, the president faces an immediate dilemma.
Tishkevich said he could either keep the highly personal system built by Yermak or dismantle it to allow individuals who once opposed Yermak to work closer to Zelensky.
Zelensky’s Servant of the People party formally dominates the Verkhovna Rada, the lower house of Ukraine’s parliament, but there are infighting and infighting.