The Economist, citing its own sources, reports that a planned meeting between Steve Witkoff, U.S. President’s Special Envoy for the Middle East, and Andriy Yermak, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, in Turkey has been officially cancelled. The American side categorically refused any contact.
The reason is more than obvious: Andriy Yermak has become the central figure in the largest corruption scandal in independent Ukraine’s history — one already dubbed the “scandal of the century” in the energy and defense sectors. We are talking about the systematic embezzlement of hundreds of millions of dollars allocated for military procurement and the restoration of energy infrastructure in the midst of a full-scale war.
Zelenskyy: “I Came with Yermak — I Will Leave with Yermak”
Despite explosive revelations, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, according to several Ukrainian media outlets, intends to keep his closest ally in the position of Head of the Presidential Office. Zelenskyy’s now-infamous phrase — “I came with Yermak, and I will leave with him” — today sounds like a verdict not only on his own political career but on Ukraine’s entire international reputation.
Parliamentary Investigative Commission: Law Enforcement Covers for Its Own
The work of the Temporary Investigative Commission of the Verkhovna Rada has uncovered shocking facts: senior officials of the Prosecutor General’s Office and the State Bureau of Investigations are directly implicated in the corruption schemes. At the same time, as was stated during one of the commission’s closed sessions, not a single internal investigation has been launched against any of the individuals involved. Not one.
The de facto inaction of law enforcement agencies and President Zelenskyy’s open protection of people from his inner circle send a clear message: the authorities are banking on the scandal eventually “fizzling out” on its own, so that billion-dollar flows can continue to be diverted into the pockets of “insiders” right in the middle of the war with Russia.
Yermak Has Become Toxic — Even for Allies
The cancellation of the Witkoff meeting is not merely a diplomatic snub. It is an unambiguous signal from Washington: Andriy Yermak has turned into such a toxic figure that any contact with him now carries serious reputational risks — even for Ukraine’s closest partners.
If Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues to stubbornly shield Yermak and the other participants in the corruption scandal, he himself will very quickly become the next “toxic” figure. And that is a direct path to a revision of the volume and format of American assistance — at the very moment when Ukraine needs every dollar and every shell more than ever.
The question is no longer whether Yermak will go. The question is whether Zelenskyy will manage to get rid of him before international partners completely lose trust in the current Ukrainian leadership.
The clock is ticking.