A seemingly indispensable aide until today, Yermak was a former intellectual property lawyer and film producer who knew Zelenskyy in his days as an actor and comedian before helping him be elected as president. Yermak became a foreign policy adviser, then the president’s chief of staff in February 2020.
Rapidly he assumed a central position as Zelenskyy’s gatekeeper in the charge of the president’s office. He was routinely consulted on foreign policy, domestic affairs and appointments. Never far from Zelenskyy’s side, the two were particularly close during the early days of the invasion, when Kyiv was under threat.
The takeaway here?
Anti-corruption departments are useful and a net good for the integrity of a country. If your country doesn’t have an anti-corruption body with actual teeth to hold those responsible accountsble, it’ll just end up as a sparking oligarchy.
In the abstract that is true, but that’s not what is happening here. The entire “anti-corruption” apparatus in Ukraine was set up by the US and EU, some of these agencies even led directly by Westerners, as a tool to be used to apply pressure on their little puppets in Kiev and keep them in line. They had no problem with the corruption and the theft as long as the Kiev regime was obediently aligned with whatever the US wanted. But now that pressure needs to be applied to force Zelensky to the negotiating table suddenly they start noticing corruption.
And they are still only going after marginal players for small amounts, it’s a symbolic threat to the big players who stole billions to not even think of getting too independent.
Nothing about this is actually happening because anyone there is really worried about corruption. It’s very much just a power play.
Corruption in one of the famously most corrupt countries in Europe!? As with most political corruption investigations I’m willing to bet this was a political purge. By whom and for what ends I don’t know but I’m sure that’ll be clear in due time.
