Omnipresent Yermak: planet-sized ego, Washington fiasco, interference in Armed Forces of Ukraine’s operations and Vietnamese bot-driven fake engagement
In recent days, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak was embroiled in a scandal. On the Office of the President’s official Facebook page, unusual activity by Vietnamese bots was detected under a photo of Yermak.
Fake accounts did not spare likes for the Head of the Office of the President. Social media users quite reasonably suspected this was nothing other than bot-driven fake engagement. Beyond the Vietnamese-bot scandal, Yermak has figured in other high-profile controversies. In particular, U.S. media described the head of the President’s Office’s June visit to Washington as a "failure."A closed-door meeting that Yermak held with students at Kyiv universities also proved a failure and likewise spiraled into a scandal. It is often said that the head of the Office of the President is a "grey cardinal." He conducts himself as if he were Ukraine’s vice president, though no such office exists in our political system. It seems little happens without Yermak; he is everywhere. He is practically always at President Zelenskyy’s side, runs back-channel diplomacy, takes part in peace talks and meetings with foreign politicians at various levels. He also selects ministers and even interferes in planning the Armed Forces of Ukraine’s military operations. Now, more on all of this from the very beginning.
Great ambitions and a desire for recognition
The first fairly critical article about Yermak appeared in the print edition of Politico in late May this year. In the piece "The Enigma of Andriy Yermak," sources quoted by the outlet describe the head of the President’s Office as a "tough political puppeteer" and as someone able to speak with President Zelenskyy "as an equal." He is the one who presents ready-made solutions to Zelenskyy.
There is an extremely telling point in that article that, it seems, explains a great deal. One of the outlet’s unnamed interlocutors draws attention to Yermak’s "extraordinary ambition" and his hunger for recognition.
"He is driven by an enormous desire to have his greatness acknowledged. He will say that public recognition means nothing to him, and that even if his name is not mentioned, it won’t matter to him. But none of that is true. He almost physically suffers when he is pushed into the background, his name has to be everywhere," Politico quotes an unnamed former Ukrainian government official as saying.
This immense drive for recognition likely explains why Yermak is everywhere.
Those familiar with Yermak also say his ego is of "planetary" proportions. This is stated in an article by the Financial Times, which painted a political portrait of the head of the President’s Office.
"Planetary" is how one ambassador, who had dealt directly with the head of the President’s Office for years, described Yermak’s ego. "Galactic is a better word," another ambassador added.
Given such self-assurance, it is hardly surprising that Yermak considers himself the country’s No. 2.
No one gets to Zelenskyy without going through Yermak.
"Both Yermak’s allies and critics agree that in Ukraine, almost nothing happens without his knowledge and approval. No one gets to the president without him," the aforementioned FT article states.
It is obvious that Zelenskyy has vested Yermak with outsized influence over Ukrainian politics.
Politico underscores that Yermak stayed close to Zelenskyy "from day one on Bankova." As friends, they bonded in a basement gym, spending time on workouts.
The Economist writes that Yermak monopolised the president's ear.
"Andriy has monopolized the president’s ear," one of the outlet’s interlocutors says. "Six years in the same office, feeding him the ‘right’ thoughts. In essence, they are already one person."
Back in 2021, Zelenskyy answered all criticism regarding Yermak. At the time, the head of state called his chief of his office "a powerful manager and a true patriot who works 24/7 for Ukraine."
"He came with me; he will leave with me. And he will not remain in any positions," Zelenskyy said then.
And it seems that was prophetic. At least, time will tell.
Thus, Yermak’s immense influence, his omnipresence, rests on access to the president.
"There is now no way to reach Zelenskyy bypassing Yermak," reads another quote from the FT.
A "bipartisan irritant" in U.S. politics
The head of the President’s Office virtually always accompanies Zelenskyy on foreign trips for summits and meetings with world leaders. Yermak also led Ukraine’s delegation for peace talks in Saudi Arabia in the spring of 2025, met in Britain with Umerov and U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, and in New York with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff. And that is far from the full list of meetings held just in recent months.
At times, it seems that Yermak has centralized the state’s diplomacy around himself, sidelining professional diplomats and ambassadors.
In this context, it is hard not to recall another Politico story about Yermak, published under the headline "The Ukrainian official Washington loves to hate." The outlet described Yermak’s failed visit to Washington in early June 2025.
One of the interlocutors familiar with Yermak’s dealings with the Trump administration described him as a "bipartisan irritant."
Politico wrote at the time that Yermak’s behavior was increasingly jeopardizing the already strained relations between Ukraine and the Trump administration.
However, officials in Joe Biden’s administration were also disappointed with Yermak, but Democrats kept their irritation in check solely because Ukraine is fighting Russian aggression.
According to sources, during the June trip to Washington, Yermak’s meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio was canceled at the last minute. Still, they say Yermak met Rubio after all. Many, however, noted that the encounter looked as if the head of the President’s Office had simply run into the U.S. Secretary of State somewhere in America’s corridors of power.
Meanwhile, Trump Chief of Staff Susie Wiles made Yermak wait at the White House and then canceled the meeting, and Vice President J.D. Vance’s office did not respond at all to a meeting request.
It was not only Politico but also the Trump-aligned outlet Fox News that criticized Yermak’s diplomatic efforts on the American track. Here are a few quotes from the piece:
Yermak is politically "tone-deaf" to Washington’s politics and often requested meetings on Capitol Hill without a clear agenda or specific asks on Ukraine’s behalf;
Yermak is simply dreadful in dealings with Republicans;
Officials on both sides of the Atlantic do not trust Yermak.
So judge for yourself the level of Yermak’s diplomatic engagement with senior U.S. officials, the leadership of a country whose assistance we so badly need.
Influence over Ukraine’s military operations
If the same Western press is to be believed, Yermak has tried on not only the role of diplomat but also that of military strategist.
Thus, the already-cited Financial Times writes that the head of the Office of the President interfered in plans for combat operations in Bakhmut, and that the decision to hold a prolonged defense of the city may have originated with him.
"According to two Ukrainian officials involved in military planning, Yermak repeatedly ignored decisions by the military leadership and in certain situations had ‘full influence’ over combat operations. One of the clearest examples, they said, was his influence on the battle for Bakhmut," the article states verbatim.
"Many Ukrainian commanders on the frontline called for a strategic withdrawal, but Yermak saw an opportunity to tell a different story. Because of its history, the fortress of Bakhmut had a certain narrative power. It was to become a symbol of Ukraine’s unbreakable resistance," the article continues.
According to the author, Christopher Miller, one of the commanders who took part in the fighting called the prolonged defense of Bakhmut "a political maneuver disguised as heroism."
"In the end, the fortress of Bakhmut fell. Losses undermined Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive, which also ended in failure. ‘It was a mistake to stay in Bakhmut for so long,’ said a senior Ukrainian official involved in military planning. ‘We had our orders.’ I asked from whom, and he named the commander of Ukraine’s Ground Forces. But that general had received his own order, the official added. It came from the Office of the President. ‘You can guess from whom,’" FT writes.
And you can guess from whom, too.
Behind the Cabinet reshuffle
Very recently, on July 18, the government underwent a "reset." Yuliia Svyrydenko became prime minister.
It is no secret that Svyrydenko is described as loyal to the head of the President’s Office, a person within his orbit. And loyalty to the President’s Office, and specifically to Yermak himself, is the main criterion for appointments to posts in the Cabinet.
They say that behind the scenes of the political theater surrounding the Cabinet reshuffle stands the same unchanging political puppeteer. Nor did the position of the government, the country’s chief executive authority, grow much stronger after the change of prime minister. Key decisions are still made at the President’s Office.
NABU and SAPO and again... Yermak
The story of dismantling the independence of the anti-corruption bodies, NABU and SAPO, and then restoring it is recent and still unfinished. We all remember well that the authorities’ offensive against the anti-corruption institutions led to unexpected "cardboard" protests attended mostly by young people.
One might have thought that at least in this case, Yermak would not figure, and that everything could be pinned on MPs who, recalling the 2019 turbo-mode, rushed to dismantle the anti-corruption bodies. But no. In the saga of destroying the independence of the anti-corruption system, the head of the President’s Office features prominently, and not just features, but serves as the key producer of this "project." This is stated in a major Ukrainska Pravda article, "And they will come for us, too. Who carried out and how the special operation destroyed the independence of NABU and SAPO."
MP Yaroslav Zhelezniak also claimed that it was Yermak who engineered the attack on NABU and SAPO.
The head of the President’s Office himself claimed that he was on his way to Turkey, heading to another round of talks, when the law eliminating the independence of NABU and SAPO was being signed. However, he was unable to explain why the Verkhovna Rada and Zelenskyy chose precisely such an extra-fast mode for this law.
Building bridges with young people
It seems the young people with cardboard signs who came out to protest against dismantling the independence of NABU and SAP caused no small panic at the President’s Office.
Thus, the task of building bridges and finding common ground with the younger generation was taken on by Andriy Yermak together with his adviser, the president of the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), Tymofii Mylovanov.
To that end, a meeting between students of Kyiv universities and the head of the President’s Office was organized on KSE premises in early August.
That meeting proved a failure for Yermak and went entirely off script. The students’ mood was "combative", they did not ask the head of the President’s Office a single complimentary question.
"Ekonomichna Pravda, thanks to which the public learned about this attempt by the President’s Office to build a bridge to young people, wrote that the meeting "underscored the gulf between the worlds in which the students and Yermak live."
Here, one can clearly state that Yermak failed to become "one of their own" for the younger generation.
Rebranding the President's Office
At the end of August, Yermak proposed to Zelenskyy that the President’s Office be reformed. The idea is that a substantial share of its staff should be servicemembers with confirmed combat experience in a full-scale war, or veterans.
It appears that Yermak and the entire Office want to appear not alien to the military, who have been to the front. And at least somewhat "launder" their reputation from numerous scandals by leaning on the military. Let’s be honest: in other words, to cover themselves with the military.
That said, it is hard to imagine how soldiers who defended and upheld Ukraine’s independence would work under the same roof with Yermak’s perpetually indispensable deputy, the anti-Maidan figure Oleh Tatarov.
So, before bringing servicemembers in to work at the President’s Office, some people will apparently have to be dismissed.
Increasing popularity through bots
Recently, Andriy Yermak found himself embroiled in yet another scandal, this time a rather comical one.
Martyna Bohuslavets, head of the Anti-Corruption Center "MEZHA," drew attention to one of the Office of the President’s posts on its official Facebook page.
The post reported that, with the participation of the President’s Office team and government representatives, an expanded meeting of the presidium of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities under the President of Ukraine had been held in Kyiv.
In the photo, with Yermak in the center, the majority of likes came from empty Vietnamese accounts. Such suspicious activity by fake Facebook pages can be explained by only one thing: fake engagement.
Interestingly, the likes from empty accounts clustered under a specific post featuring Yermak, since nothing similar appears under other posts.
But it isn’t bots alone. On TikTok, you can even come across Andriy Yermak fan accounts. It is unknown whether the President’s Office has anything to do with this. Let’s assume these are truly ardent fans of Andriy Borysovych.
Nationwide (dis)affection
And speaking of fans and supporters. Unlike Zelenskyy, Zaluzhnyi, Budanov, Poroshenko, and others, Yermak is not as often included in polling lists of politicians whose trust ratings are measured.
Still, his name has appeared in such lists from time to time.
Thus, in February 2024, 27% trusted Yermak and 61% did not, according to a survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.
In October 2024, almost 62% did not trust the head of the President’s Office, according to the Razumkov Centre.
In the spring of 2025, 67% of Ukrainians did not trust Yermak, according to a poll by the Razumkov Centre.
Against the backdrop of such figures, it is hard to speak of popular affection. And the fan accounts on TikTok look all the more peculiar.
So it seems the only ones gratifying Yermak’s "planet-sized ego" and securing recognition for him are the Vietnamese bots.
Mariia Kondratiuk
