In Firing His No. 2, Zelensky Loses Both a Negotiator and an Enforcer

Andriy Yermak had ensured internal discipline in Ukraine’s wartime politics. He also led the country’s peace negotiations, which now must go on without him.

President Volodymyr Zelensky’s dismissal of his longtime right-hand man opens a window for sweeping change inside Ukraine, leaving Mr. Zelensky without a figure to enforce discipline within Ukraine’s competitive politics, as Russia always looks for seams to exploit.

The departure of the aide, Andriy Yermak, on Friday amid a corruption investigation also removes Ukraine’s lead negotiator from difficult peace talks to end the largest war in Europe in generations. But as a Ukrainian delegation was scheduled to continue negotiations this weekend in the United States, now without Mr. Yermak, Ukrainian officials insisted that the dynamics of the talks would not fundamentally change.

Mr. Yermak, a former movie producer who has been close to Mr. Zelensky for years, had been a sharp-elbowed and imperious political operative, to the point that opposition politicians and journalists accused him of repression and abuse. Many cheered his exit.

In diplomacy to end the war, too, Mr. Yermak seized a central role. He sidelined a former foreign minister who had good working relations with American and European governments. In the latest round of talks with the Trump administration, Mr. Zelensky had appointed Mr. Yermak to lead Ukraine’s delegation, despite the looming corruption investigation.

Mr. Yermak’s insistence on remaining, nearly always, physically close to the president had drawn notice both in Ukraine and in foreign capitals. A tall, strapping man, he struck an almost cartoonish contrast to the diminutive Mr. Zelensky in photographs when both appeared wearing matching green military-style clothing. In both the Trump and Biden administrations, Mr. Yermak had rubbed officials the wrong way, diplomats say.

But swapping out Ukraine’s top negotiator will not alter the weighty underlying issues of security for Ukraine and Europe in the talks.

“Negotiations are teamwork,” said Oleksandr Merezhko, the chairman of the foreign policy committee in Ukraine’s Parliament. “If one person drops out, the mechanism doesn’t change.”

Mr. Zelensky has emphasized that negotiations are continuing apace. On social media on Saturday, he said that a Ukrainian delegation, led by Rustem Umerov, the head of the National Security and Defense Council, was “already on the way to the United States” for talks.

“Ukraine continues to work with the United States in the most constructive way possible,” Mr. Zelensky wrote. He added that he expected that the results of earlier negotiations in Geneva “will now be hammered out in the United States” during a meeting on Sunday.

Over the past week, Mr. Yermak had negotiated to soften a Trump administration proposal whose 28 points largely reflected Russian demands. These included withdrawing from territory in eastern Ukraine, forgoing NATO membership and ruling out a postwar Western peacekeeping force for Ukraine.

The proposal included a promise of security guarantees to prevent another Russian invasion that would be enforced in part by the United States, but without detailing the level of commitment to Ukraine’s defense. Ukrainians are wary.

Officials often point to a 1994 agreement with the United States and other nations, known as the Budapest Memorandum, that had vowed support for Ukraine’s independence in exchange for Kyiv’s surrendering of nuclear weapons. That pact proved toothless when Russia began its first invasion of Ukraine, in 2014.

Russia says it opposes European plans for a “reassurance force” inside Ukraine after any cease-fire. Ukraine, for its part, is resisting Russian demands to withdraw from territory in the eastern Donbas region that its military still controls, including the well-fortified cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk that Kyiv has defended since the war began in the east in 2014.

In announcing Mr. Yermak’s firing, Mr. Zelensky said that his former aide had faithfully represented Ukrainian interests in talks but was being removed to avoid a “distraction.” He did not directly mention the corruption investigation.

Detectives on Friday morning had searched Mr. Yermak’s home after charging figures close to both the president and Mr. Yermak with embezzling about $100 million from contractors to the state nuclear company, Energoatom, in a vast kickback scheme.

His firing eases worries in Ukraine that Russia or the United States will use the corruption scandal as leverage to push Ukrainian officials to make painful concessions in talks. An opposition political party, European Solidarity, had issued a statement on Thursday demanding Mr. Yermak’s removal from the negotiating team for this reason.

Anticorruption activists say Mr. Yermak and another negotiator implicated in the corruption case, Mr. Umerov, the head of the National Security and Defense Council, faced conflicts of interest in negotiations over provisions in the peace plan, including a proposed amnesty for wartime crimes. Such a condition could cover the investigations targeting them.

The departure of Mr. Yermak is a seismic event in Ukraine’s wartime politics. By systematically sidelining rivals in the Cabinet of Ministers and the presidential office, he had won broad behind-the-scenes power. He was a vice president, a prime minister and a chief of staff rolled into one, analysts said.

Anticorruption activists cheered his firing. But Mr. Zelensky now faces questions over how, without Mr. Yermak, he will keep control over his party and government ministries in Ukraine’s pluralistic internal politics.

With Mr. Yermak no longer around to ride herd on domestic policy, keep a lid on power struggles within the military and oversee peace negotiations, Mr. Zelensky’s political control may weaken, analysts say. Mr. Zelensky has said he would consult with Ukrainian politicians and generals before appointing a replacement.

Mr. Yermak indicated on Friday that there could be more twists to come after his sudden exit. In a text message exchange with The New York Post, he said he planned to join the military and fight the Russians.

“I’m going to the front,” Mr. Yermak wrote, The Post reported. “I am an honest and decent person.”

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