Yermak has managed to irritate American politicians from both parties - FT
The visit of the head of the Presidential Office, Andrii Yermak, to the United States in June 2025 was unsuccessful.
According to Censor.NET, this is stated in the Financial Times.
Western ambassadors who have spoken directly with Yermak describe the size of his ego as "planetary" and "galactic"
"Yermak's arrogance has led to conflicts with several Western envoys sent to Kyiv, including former US Ambassador Bridget Brink, who resigned in April to protest Trump's policy towards Ukraine. Yermak's aides accused Brink of failing to prepare Zelenskyy for a controversial meeting with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant in Kyiv in February this year," the FT writes.
Yermak's aides said that he often felt that the US Embassy under Brink was working against the Presidential Office by focusing too intensely on the issue of corruption in Ukraine - and the many government reshuffles that consolidated more power in Yermak's hands. At the same time, he did not focus enough on securing more military aid.
Brink's entourage disagreed, saying that no one in Kyiv fought harder than she did to secure US aid.
Relations between Ukraine and the US have not improved much since Yermak's last trip to Washington in June. Meetings with several senior Trump officials were either shortened or cancelled.
A meeting with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles never took place.
"They met in the corridor, passing each other," said one person who was briefed on the conversation. When Wiles moved on, Yermak managed to say one sentence: "I want to say that we are winning the war." An attempt to meet with Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio went only slightly better. Vance's team treated him coldly.
"It was a disaster," admitted one Ukrainian official.
The publication also notes that at a meeting in Jeddah in March 2025, an agreement between Ukrainian and American officials on Trump's proposed 30-day truce with Russia nearly collapsed because Yermak refused to sign it, fearing that even a temporary truce could give Moscow time to regroup.
Rubio and then-Trump National Security Adviser Mike Volz pushed hard for the deal. But Yermak stood his ground. It took Volz one last attempt to contact Zelensky directly. When the Ukrainian president called Yermak, his message was clear: agree to a ceasefire.
Former and current officials in Kyiv and Washington say that Yermak has managed to irritate American politicians on both sides, a "bipartisan achievement" that few can boast of.
A former US official who was briefed on Yermak's trip to the US said:
He is making things more complicated than they need to be. He does not generate any creative ideas. He also has a tendency to put himself in the spotlight. One of the most critical comments is that he sometimes does not seem genuinely interested in his country. It is important for him to be at the centre of decision-making, even if it is actively detrimental to Zelenskyy and Ukraine
At the same time, the officials did not deny that Yermak had achieved some victories. Two mentioned his June 2024 peace summit in Burgenstock in the Swiss Alps, which they said helped to engage several countries in the global South that had remained neutral in the war or leaned toward supporting Moscow.
"Unfortunately, Andrii often focused on things that I didn't think were critical to winning the war," said a former US official who worked with Yermak.
