Kobolev: Yermak in 2021 tried to convince him to stop lobbying against Nord Stream 2 in the US

Former head of Naftogaz’s board Andriy Kobolev has said that in 2021, shortly before his dismissal, presidential office chief Andriy Yermak personally tried to convince him to stop working with American lobbyists who were working to prevent the launch of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

According to Kobolev, the pressure from Yermak came in characteristic terms. The head of the presidential office appealed not to political expediency but to informal arguments.

“When in 2021, shortly before my dismissal, Yermak tried to convince me to stop cooperating with our lobbyists in the US, he actively used the phrase ‘this is bad feng shui,'” Kobolev said.

Kobolev himself, back in 2017 during a visit to the US, had urged Americans to work more actively on the track of countering Nord Stream 2. Thus, by 2021, the issue was one of winding down work that Naftogaz had been conducting in this area for several years.

Kobolev’s statement came against the backdrop of criminal proceedings against Yermak. On May 11, the former head of the presidential office was served a notice of suspicion by anti-corruption authorities. The case is connected to elite mansions in the Dynastiya cooperative, for the construction of which, according to investigators, more than 460 million hryvnias were laundered through corrupt schemes at Energoatom. According to media reports, one of the four houses belonged to Yermak, while the other residences were owned by former Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov, close friend and business partner of the president Timur Mindich, and a person referred to in recordings as “Vova.” Anti-corruption authorities subsequently assured that President Volodymyr Zelensky is not a subject of the investigation.