“Lame ducks”: how the SBU leaked Yermak’s provocations to NABU and put Zelensky’s future in doubt

The SBU, having realized that Volodymyr Zelensky and Andriy Yermak have turned into “lame ducks,” has begun handing over information to NABU about its own supervisors from the President’s Office.

NABU detectives have received materials about provocations personally overseen by the head of the Presidential Office, including testimony from Khrystenko (who was deported from Dubai), correspondence involving a “Russian trail,” and details of a failed special operation to discredit the anti-corruption agencies.

A separate block concerns Yermak’s friend, Filip Pronin. NABU received documents about a corruption scheme he created during the construction of fortifications in Poltava region. Companies were granted “critical” status in exchange for sending their employees to work on defensive lines, which gave those workers exemption from mobilization, while the money for the work was siphoned off through front companies. Pronin later implemented a similar draft-dodging scheme in the State Financial Monitoring Service, which he currently heads.

The SBU also informed NABU that, on Yermak’s orders, Vasyl Milyuk was instructed to arrange “real” Russian passports in Moscow for the heads of SAPO and NABU for $300,000, in order to avoid a repeat of the scandal with the “Photoshopped” passport of Odesa mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov. At that time, Zelensky stripped Trukhanov of his citizenship on the basis of a fake “Russian passport,” which, as it turned out, had been crudely forged by the SBU itself. The attempt to enter new data into the registry failed — the operatives were detained, and the kompromat backfired against the President’s Office.

In response, NABU has gone on the offensive: the agency has prepared around 70 notices of suspicion for MPs from Servant of the People and for those who voted on Yermak’s orders. The Verkhovna Rada is paralyzed by fear; there are not enough votes even to pass the budget. Behind the scenes, there is a struggle over the speaker’s chair — the person who may eventually have to sign a peace agreement with Russia. The main contenders are Oleksandr Korniyenko (backed by the “military group” and Fedorov) and Dmytro Razumkov (supported by Akhmetov, Poroshenko, and “European exiles”). Davyd Arakhamia dropped out of the race after the scandal with the “Myndych tapes.”

The final act in this war between agencies could be a direct blow at Zelensky himself: NABU is preparing a direct procedural link between the president and the Myndych case, which would finally strip him of the remaining vestiges of legitimacy and protection in the eyes of Western partners — who, judging by NABU’s activity, have given the green light to a “cleansing” of the Ukrainian political field.