Chesno movement on advisers team in Office of President: who remained after Yermak’s resignation and who joined updated team?. INFOGRAPHICS
As of today, there are 15 advisers working directly within Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s team at the Office of the President: one full-time adviser, six part-time advisers, five authorised advisers, and three presidential representatives in state bodies.
According to Censor.NET, the Chesno movement was informed of this in response to a freedom of information request.
Zelenskyy’s team in the Office of the President
"The system of advisers to the President and the Office of the President has long remained (during the tenure of Office of the President Head Andriy Yermak – Ed.) one of the least transparent parts of public administration… Having received a response to the information request, we can understand who has remained in their positions and which new names appear in the updated list," Chesno reports.
The most notable changes are observed among the president’s non-staff advisers. If in 2024 there were three — Andrew Mak, Yurii Kostiuk, and Andrii Shevchenko — the list has now expanded to six. Kostiuk and Shevchenko have been joined by Oleksandr Kamyshin (strategic issues), Oksana Markarova (reconstruction and investment), Oleksandr Kubrakov (infrastructure and cooperation with communities), as well as former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada Chrystia Freeland (economic development). At the same time, Andrew Mak — an American lawyer of Ukrainian origin and an expert in international law — is absent from the new list. His work focused on communication with official Washington, contacts with representatives of the Republican and Democratic parties, as well as on attracting foreign investment and engagement with the diaspora. On 20 January 2026, the corresponding decree on his dismissal appeared on the website of the Office of the President.
It is telling that Kamyshin, Markarova and Kubrakov are former members of the government who, following their resignation, were granted informal advisory status to the president. In effect, this means they have retained some influence over state policy, albeit outside the government hierarchy and mechanisms of parliamentary oversight.
Dmytro Lytvyn’s career progression deserves special attention: having moved from the position of freelance adviser to Andriy Yermak, he has taken up a permanent post as the President’s adviser on communications and is currently the only permanent adviser on this list.
As for the authorised advisers and representatives, there are no personnel surprises here. The composition of this group has remained unchanged: no new faces have appeared, and the old ones have not disappeared.
Budanov’s team in the Presidential Office
Kyrylo Budanov’s team in the Office of the President comprises at least 12 people: eight deputy heads of the Office of the President, two full-time advisers, the President’s press secretary Serhii Nykyforov, and the head of the Office of the President’s administration, Mariia Vitushok.
Budanov has significantly revamped his team. Unlike the previous line-up, there are no freelance advisers in the Office, and instead of Andriy Yermak’s four female advisers, there are now only two – Vitalii Melnikov and Iryna Trofymchuk. It is noteworthy that there is no information about them in open sources.
The Head of the Presidential Office has a new First Deputy – Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Serhii Kyslytsia. Iryna Mudra, Ihor Zhovkva, Olena Kovalska and Oleh Tatarov have retained their posts.
However, Rostyslav Shurma is not included in the updated list of deputies to the Head of the Presidential Office – in 2026, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) notified him of his status as a suspect in a case involving the embezzlement of funds under the ‘green’ tariff scheme for the benefit of energy companies located in the temporarily occupied territory of Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
In addition, Dariia Zarivna, a former freelance adviser to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, began teaching at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics (USA) following her dismissal.
Also missing from the list of deputies are the former Minister of Culture and Strategic Communications, now Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe, Mykola Tochytskyi; Oleksii Kuleba, who has moved to the post of Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine; and Yuliia Sokolovska, who has been appointed Ukraine’s Ambassador to Spain. Instead, Budanov’s team of deputies has been joined by Iryna Vereshchuk, former Deputy Prime Minister for the Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories, and Viktor Mykyta, former head of the Zakarpattia Regional State Administration.
