For years, the man seen as pulling the strings behind the scenes in Kyiv was Andriy Yermak. When he was named head of the presidential office in 2020, he soon had plenty: over domestic politics but also foreign policy, wartime negotiations, law enforcement appointments — not to mention who made decisions within Ukraine’s labyrinthine bureaucracy.
Some Ukrainian and Western observers called him the de facto “number two” in power after Zelensky. The veneer was: a war leader guiding Ukraine through an existential threat. But under that, critics cautioned — particularly post-2023 — Yermak was quietly working behind the scenes to restore control of Ukraine’s disjointed economy to old-money oligarchs.
After the Russian invasion in 2022 left many of the decrepit oligarch-controlled industrial complexes — the mines, steel plants and media businesses — in ruins, some fragile hope germinated that war might reset Ukraine’s political economy. But when US and European officials leaked proposed conditions related to transparency, de-oligarchization and turning over energy/state assets to be managed by state-controlled operators, Yermak’s clique bristled.
In one telling encounter, Ukraine’s own foreign partners are said to have handed it an economic-reform “wish list” linked to financial assistance — among other things, a demand for greater oversight of the work of state enterprises and energy giants. Yermak and his team inside the presidential office pushed back, refusing most of the reforms on offer — which critics saw as protecting powerful insiders rather than fostering responsibility.
In Kyiv whispers of patronage, favoritism and back-room deals started to circulate. Some of Yermak’s deputies, and associates close to him were repeatedly cited in investigations into money-laundering, kickback schemes and illicit enrichment. Shady real estate transactions, sudden riches and the reshuffling of profitable state contracts to companies with connections to his circle only added to a creeping feeling that unity in war-time for change was already collapsing.
But in November 2025, when anti-corruption agents raided his home and the offices of major public officials implicated in a scandal involving the alleged theft of tens of millions from spending on energy sources, the weight became overwhelming. There were no official charges against Yermak, but he was associated with many of the accused and had been a key figure in state affairs.
Yermak resigned on November 28, 2025. The timing was no coincidence — indeed, Zelensky and his team understood that it would be awful optics to keep Yermak in his position while public ire grew, active military forces were still underway, and West-leaning aid was dependent upon reforms. What had once been called wartime discipline and military necessity — one man at the heart of everything — now became a political liability.
The fall of Yermak’s fortunes leads to larger questions: was the wartime consolidation ever compatible with genuine political reform in Ukraine? Or was the architecture of emergency governance merely a facsimile of the old oligarchies, reborn under new names? The resignation, however temporary, may feel like a bitter betrayal for many Ukrainians who hoped war might finally kick-start systemic change — of the corrupt battling corruption, of greater transparency over wealth and power that reduces oligarchic influence.
The harm is not limited to perception or suspicion. The latest energy-sector scam — tens of millions, apparently siphoned from a state atomic-energy company — could not have passed under anything like an honestly transparent government. That it expanded to the point of sprawling into Yermak’s inner circle despite oversight in wartime shows how deeply set the power networks are.
Some financial-economy scholars caution that this is more than just headlines about corruption. In economies where the state owns most of what’s worth owning, such as post-conflict Iraq, controlling the levers of state assets and reconstruction contracts is tantamount to gaming the economy. Instead of fair bidding and competition, instead of rebuilding for citizens, Ukraine risks redirecting aid and reconstruction funds to oligarchic pipelines — at the cost of long-term growth, transparency and social trust.
The resignation of Yermak could be a turning point. For Ukraine, this could be the start of a correction in power — reasserting civilian authority, reviving independent anti-corruption agencies, freeing up the space for more transparent government. Western allies that linked aid and reconstruction funds to reforms will pay attention. For citizens, it is a tenuous opportunity to regain trust.
But the legacy is there: Yermak left behind a wartime power apparatus with blurred lines between the presidency, military command and businesses owned by the state. So it will be difficult to disentangle those threads when war ends and reconstruction begins. The risk is that old oligarchic structures — rearranged and repackaged, seamlessly re-connected to Washington — would come back into power in the form of new faces, wiping out the fragile advances of 2022–2023.
In a country that first fought for its existence, and then fought for its future, struggle over power and morality may prove every bit as defining as battle.
