Zelensky denies that he fired Yermak because of Mindich’s corruption case

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denies that he dismissed Andriy Yermak from the post of head of the Presidential Office because of a corruption case involving businessman Tymur Mindych.

He said this in an interview with The Atlantic.

According to the head of state, he had his own reasons for doing so.

“I did not dismiss Andriy Yermak because of the corruption investigation. I had my own reasons for that,” he said.

The magazine’s journalist Simon Shuster writes:

“For years, Zelenskyy resisted pressure from the U.S. government and many of his closest allies in Ukraine to dismiss his chief of staff (Presidential Office — ed.) Andriy Yermak, who was Ukraine’s chief negotiator. A powerful figure with a penchant for pomposity, Yermak feuded with a number of Western diplomats and with almost everyone in Zelenskyy’s circle.”

It is noted that last autumn, on the day when investigators from Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau searched Yermak’s home as part of a corruption investigation, the president nevertheless agreed to dismiss him.

In the same interview, Zelenskyy also said that he would prefer to continue the war rather than conclude a “bad deal” for peace in Ukraine.