Zelenskyjs mäktiga stabschef avgår. Presidentens ställning kan stärkas
Di:s ukrainska medarbetare Tetiana Raida 28 november 2025
Zelenskiy Left Exposed by Loss of Top Aide as US Pressure Mounts
Yermak’s resignation highlights the tensions between the president’s inner circle and the country’s anti-graft agencies, set up at the insistence of Kyiv’s western backers.
Zelenskiy won power in 2019 with a promise to stamp out the corruption that’s plagued Ukraine for decades, but his domestic opponents and international allies have recently questioned how seriously he’s been pursuing that goal.
Zelensky dismissed his right-hand man. Is he weaker or stronger now?
Nataliya Gumenyuk, a member of the board of independent news media organization Hromadske, told CNN she believed Ukrainians would accept Zelensky’s framing of the loss of his right-hand man as a positive reset of his administration.
And the president will have been heartened that MPs from his own party – some of whom had threatened to leave the party if Yermak remained in post – issued a statement praising him for putting the interests of the country first.
But a former government official told CNN the decision had come too late, arguing many Ukrainians would now be asking what Zelensky knew about Yermak’s actions.
“On the one side, you have his close ally, on the other side, you have his close friend, his former business partner,” the official said, referring to both Yermak and another man caught up in the latest scandal, Timur Mindich. “Do you really think the president wasn’t aware about this?”
Kommentarer