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Zelensky's top aide resigns after anti-corruption police raid his home

Iran Press TV

Friday, 28 November 2025 2:56 PM

Zelensky's top aide, Andriy Yermak, has handed in his resignation hours after Ukraine's anti-corruption force raided his home, as corruption scandals tighten around the presidential circle.

Some ten officers from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP) took part in the raid on Friday.

Yermak, officially the chief of staff to the president, is seen as Ukraine's second most powerful man and has been leading the Ukrainian delegation during recent talks in Geneva with Washington to end the war with Russia.

"Today, NABU and SAPO are indeed conducting procedural actions at my home. The investigators are not encountering any obstacles," Yermak said in a post on Telegram, claiming he was "fully cooperating" with the anti-corruption police.

Hours later, though, Zelensky announced Yermak's resignation in a video message.

The raid came days after US journalist Tucker Carlson accused the Wall Street Journal of withholding a corruption exposé on Yermak.

In a post on X on Monday, Carlson alleged that senior editors at the newspaper, owned by Rupert Murdoch, are holding back evidence showing Yermak siphoned off "hundreds of millions" of dollars in US taxpayer funds intended for Ukraine.

Carlson further claimed that the WSJ's editorial leadership was aware of the alleged embezzlement but "has refused to publish the findings."

The latest development comes at a moment when Ukraine's own anti-corruption agencies are in the process of uncovering massive graft at the highest levels.

Earlier this month, the agencies exposed a sprawling $100 million energy-sector kickback scheme involving Timur Mindich, one of Zelensky's longtime business partners.

Mindich fled the country to avoid arrest, and Zelensky belatedly imposed sanctions on him after the scandal became impossible to contain.

Zelensky, who introduced sanctions against Mindich to exonerate himself, had tried and failed to roll back the powers of the prosecutor general's office amid the widening graft scandal that has shaken Kiev.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, commenting on the scandal, argued that it shows Ukraine is run by a "criminal gang that holds power for personal enrichment" and ignores the interests of its citizens.