Zelenskyy on Yermak’s dismissal: Not because of corruption, "I had my own reasons"
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denied that a NABU corruption probe was the reason for the dismissal of his former Office head Andriy Yermak.
He said this in an interview with The Atlantic, Censor.NET reports.
On Yermak
As the outlet notes, for many years Zelenskyy resisted pressure from the U.S. government and many of his closest allies in Ukraine, who demanded that Yermak, Ukraine’s chief negotiator, be dismissed.
"Yermak, an imperious personality with a penchant for posing, feuded with a number of Western diplomats and almost everyone in Zelenskyy’s circle. Only in the fall of last year, on the day investigators searched Yermak’s home as part of a corruption investigation, did the president agree to dismiss him," the journalist recalls.
However, in the interview with The Atlantic, Zelenskyy refused to acknowledge that the corruption investigation forced him to make that decision. "I had my own reasons," he snapped, cutting off the line of questioning, the outlet quotes him as saying.
The outlet adds that Yermak’s successor, former head of the Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR) of the Ministry of Defense Kyrylo Budanov, who now leads Ukraine’s negotiating team, is more inclined toward compromises, even on territorial issues.
He led prolonged discussions with the president’s aides on the legal and practical conditions required for Ukraine to be able to withdraw its troops from some parts of the Donetsk region without allowing the Russians to advance and seize it.
Yermak’s dismissal
- On the morning of November 28, media outlets reported that NABU and SAPO were conducting searches at Andriy Yermak's premises.
- Subsequently, NABU officially confirmed the investigative actions.
- Yermak stated that there are no obstacles for investigators.
- The media said that the suspicion against Yermak could be linked to the "Dynastiia" cooperative.
- Zelenskyy later said in an address to the nation that Andriy Yermak had submitted his resignation as head of the President’s Office.
- According to media reports, on 5 December, Yermak visited the central office of the Foreign Intelligence Service. He may have been negotiating cover documents for leaving Ukraine.
- Earlier, UP journalists found that Andriy Yermak is living in Kyiv and meeting with various officials.
