Anti-graft investigators have today raided the home and offices of Volodymyr Zelensky‘s powerful chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, in the latest corruption embarrassment to his the Ukrainian leader.
The country’s National Anti-Corruption Agency (NABU) and Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) are ‘conducting investigative actions (searches) at the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine‘, NABU said in a statement.
‘The investigative actions are sanctioned and are being carried out as part of an investigation,’ NABU said in a statement’, the agency added.
Yermak himself has said since this morning’s raid that he is fully cooperating with investigators.
The 54-year-old is considered Ukraine’s second-most powerful man, having stood by Zelensky’s side since he took office in 2019.
But Ukrainian MPs and watchdogs have called for Zelensky’s chief of staff to be sacked amid a massive £75million energy corruption scandal that has been the latest embarrassment for the embattled president.
Both NABU and SAPO alleged that a group, including Ukrainian government officials, were collecting bribes from the state nuclear power company, Energoatom.
The group of officials are said to have collected 10-15% of the value of each contract given, amounting to £75million that was unlawfully given to the tiny group – money that could have been used to help defend Ukraine from Russian attacks.
Anti-graft investigators have today raided the home and offices of Volodymyr Zelensky’s powerful chief of staff, Andriy Yermak (pictured)
Yermak’s political opponents have been trying to link him to the scandal that has rocked the embattled nation, claiming that either he or one of his underlings is the anonymous individual referred to as ‘Ali Baba’ in wiretapped conversations related to the investigation.
Yermak has denied involvement in the scheme, telling German newspaper Welt last week: ‘People mention me, and sometimes, absolutely without any evidence, they try to accuse me of things I don’t even know about’.
The alleged ringleader and mastermind of the corruption scheme is businessman Timur Mindich, a long-time contact of Zelensky’s.
Even before Zelensky’s shock rise to high office in 2019, Mindich is said to have been one of his closest associated.
This didn’t stop the Ukrainian president from placing sanctions against Mindich, who has since fled Ukraine.
The country, which has been battling with Russia for nearly four years, is on the cusp of agreeing a peace deal brokered by the US.
But Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever has said the European Union’s plan to use frozen Russian state assets to fund Ukraine could endanger the chances for a potential peace deal.
‘Hastily moving forward on the proposed reparations loan scheme would have, as a collateral damage, that we as EU are effectively preventing reaching an eventual peace deal,’ De Wever said in a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, seen by Reuters.
A man walks on the debris of a burning house, destroyed after a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 24, 2022
Servicemen of the 93rd Kholodnyi Yar Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces load in a pickup truck after a combat mission, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, near the frontline town of Kostiantynivka in Donetsk region, Ukraine November 27, 2025
A Malka self-propelled cannon fires towards Ukrainian positions in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on November 28
The Financial Times first reported on the letter late on Thursday.
EU leaders tried at a summit last month to agree on a plan to use 140 billion euros (£122billion) in frozen Russian sovereign assets in Europe as a loan for Kyiv, but failed to secure the backing of Belgium, where much of the funds are held.
The European Commission did not respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive body, hopes to address Belgium’s concerns in a draft legal proposal which it will present this week on using the frozen sovereign assets to support Kyiv in 2026 and 2027, EU officials have said.
In the letter, De Wever also said Belgium had not seen ‘any proposed legal language by the commission’.
