Top officials in Ukrainian politics coordinated their actions to force out chief of staff Andriy Yermak, who had moved to sack the SBU chief and other security officials in a bid to save himself.
Yermak’s resignation has become not only one of the most anticipated and high-profile departures in Ukrainian politics in recent years, but also one of the most dramatic.
According to Ukrainska Pravda, on the morning of the dismissal, Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, SBU chief Vasyl Maliuk, NABU director Semen Kryvonos and SAPO head Oleksandr Klymenko all arrived at the President’s Office at the same time.
Maliuk’s appearance was symbolic: throughout the previous week, Yermak had pushed to fire him, accusing the SBU chief of failing to "protect" him during Operation "Midas." Zelensky met the security officials looking like a leader who had realized that internal conflicts were beginning to threaten the state’s governability as much as the external war.
There is now a significant chance Yermak will end up in the dock. "An official notice of suspicion is just a matter of time," law enforcement sources told Ukrainska Pravda.
When Yermak was asked to write a resignation letter, he erupted at the president for half an hour with reproaches, accusations and attempts to shift blame. "Yermak did not believe until the very end that Zelensky would remove him. And like this — presenting it as a fait accompli. They say what angered him most was precisely that, that the president abandoned him," said someone from Yermak’s inner circle.
"The break was awful. But it’s great that the president finally saw whom he had been sheltering and now understands everything," one government official told UP.
Over two weeks, several key figures pressed the president to let Yermak go, Ukrainska Pravda reports:
- Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov;
- Rada Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk;
- Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal;
- Oleh Tatarov — a figure long seen as Yermak’s protégé.
A secret "revolutionary chat"
The outlet found that there was a closed chat inside the government where top officials coordinated their moves, risking exposure by Yermak. After the dismissal, one participant posted a message that became an inside meme for the team: "Nothing pleases on a Saturday photo from the president’s office like the empty chair to his right."
According to one of the "revolutionaries," the post racked up a record number of likes - a symbol of how much the chief of staff had united everyone against himself.
Sources told Ukrainska Pravda that Yermak’s exit seemed to "release the pressure" at the top. One team member described the shift this way: "Zelensky is now energetic again, like the president of 02/24/2022. And we’re all with him."
Ukrainska Pravda reports that the following candidates are being considered: Mykhailo Fedorov; Denys Shmyhal; Pavlo Palitsa; the deputy head of the President’s Office for military affairs; and Serhiy Kyslytsya, the first deputy foreign minister who is currently leading talks with the United States. Appointing Kyslytsya could shift the Office’s focus from scandals to international work and signal stabilization.
