Категорія: en

Among Ukrainian bloggers, a conspiratorial theory has long been circulating that Andriy Yermak is a Russian intelligence agent with the codename “Kozyr” (Trump Card). However, none of them have been able to present any evidence to support this theory. Nevertheless, observing Yermak’s political activities, it’s impossible not to notice his decidedly favorable attitude towards Russia, at least until the war.

For instance, in September 2019, Andriy Yermak, in a conversation with the U.S. Chargé d’Affaires in Ukraine William Taylor and former U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker, directly accused former President Poroshenko of the war in Donbas. He did so with such emotion that none of the participants doubted Yermak’s sincere belief in his accusations.

During the meeting with Yermak, Volker hinted at dropping the idea of prosecuting Poroshenko. In response, Yermak pulled out a mobile phone, showed a photo of his brother wounded in Donbas, and declared Poroshenko to be the culprit. As William Taylor recalls, he was convinced of Yermak’s deep-seated emotional resentment towards Poroshenko.

Blaming the former president for the war in Donbas is peculiar, given that Petro Poroshenko took office in June 2014, while active combat operations in the East began in April. Essentially, Andriy Yermak was echoing Russian propaganda, which also blamed not Putin but Ukrainian politicians for the conflict. And according to Taylor, Yermak genuinely believed in these accusations.

Interestingly, the heroic brother of the President’s Office head, Denis Yermak, was accused by journalists and opposition deputy Geo Leros in March 2020 of organizing a scheme for trading state positions. His conversations discussing the cost of various leadership positions with candidates were recorded on video. Ukrainian law enforcement showed no interest in these recordings, and Denis Yermak faced no consequences for his actions.

Another piece of the puzzle adding to Andriy Yermak’s portrait is the “Wagner case” or Wagnergate. Facts indicate that he was the one who disrupted this operation by insisting on its postponement for a week. As a result, the plan of Ukrainian special services was thwarted, and Russian mercenaries avoided arrest in Ukraine.

Briefly, the “Wagner case” involved the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (GUR) and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) planning to arrest 33 members of the Wagner group in the summer of 2020. This included those involved in the downing of a military IL-76 near Luhansk in June 2014 and potentially important witnesses in the MH17 flight downing case.

Russian mercenaries were to be arrested in Kyiv with the help of a forced, supposedly emergency landing of a Turkish Airlines plane traveling from Minsk to Istanbul. Months before, Ukrainian intelligence agents had placed fake job ads in Russia for security work in Venezuela, promising salaries of several thousand dollars a month, with a preference for candidates with combat experience. This way, among the hundreds of Russian applicants, GUR and SBU agents managed to identify those of most interest: members of the Wagner group.

Zelensky was informed about the upcoming special operation on June 15, 2020. He approved the operation and asked for a plan to be prepared, which was reviewed and approved by the Minister of Defense on July 1, 2020. Subsequently, two senior officers responsible for the operation, Vasyl Burba, head of GUR, and Ruslan Baranetskyi, deputy chairman of the SBU, regularly reported to Zelensky. However, on July 23, 2020, during the final plan approval at the President’s Office, Andriy Yermak insisted on postponing the operation date from July 25 by another week.

It’s worth noting that on July 25, the bus with Wagner mercenaries crossed the border between Russia and Belarus. According to the original plan, they were to fly to Istanbul and then to Caracas that same day. Instead, the mercenaries were accommodated in one of the resorts near Minsk. The new flight date was set for July 30.

On the morning of the penultimate day of the Wagner mercenaries’ stay in the resort, Belarusian special forces stormed in. The mercenaries were detained allegedly for planning riots in Minsk but were later returned to Russia.

The reason for the operation’s failure turned out to be a phone call from Zelensky to Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. Zelensky himself only admitted this after many months of denial. In October 2021, during a briefing in Truskavets, the Ukrainian president revealed he had informed Lukashenko about the Wagner mercenaries near Minsk, to which Lukashenko responded, “We will do everything possible.”

Initially, the President’s Office claimed that there was no operation to detain the Wagner mercenaries at all. Then a new version emerged: the operation was prepared but by foreign intelligence services that wanted to involve Ukraine in unnecessary troubles. Only after the testimony of the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, Vasyl Burba, who publicly disclosed some details of the failed plan to detain Russian mercenaries, was the president forced to acknowledge the truth. Burba, who called for a parliamentary investigative commission on the fact of treason, was immediately dismissed from his position. His service apartment and state security were also taken away, although, after public outcry, the security detail was returned.

Why did Zelensky sabotage the special operation of Ukrainian intelligence services? According to him, he did not want to worsen relations with Russia ahead of negotiations with Putin. Of course, as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and elected head of state, the president has the right to make such political decisions. But one can be 100% certain that without Yermak’s advice, this would not have happened.

Andriy Yermak does not need to be an FSB agent to push Zelensky towards actions beneficial to Russia. Currently, we do not know whether he truly works for the Kremlin or simply holds pro-Russian views, which he has carefully hidden under the guise of patriotism since the start of the full-scale war.

>>> 42. And So the War Began…

Table of contents

The first suspicions that Andriy Yermak had unofficial communication channels with the Kremlin emerged in early January 2020, when Zelensky made a very strange trip to Oman. Facts suggest that in this Middle Eastern country, the President of Ukraine met with a high-ranking representative of Putin, most likely the Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev.

The chronology of this journey is quite convoluted, but social media and modern technologies significantly simplified the work of journalists. According to the official version, Zelensky celebrated the New Year with his family at the state residence Sinegora in the Carpathians. However, on January 1, he was spotted several tens of kilometers away, at the Bukovel ski resort. Kolomoisky was also in Bukovel at the time, but that’s beside the point.

Zelensky spent several days skiing and taking photos with tourists. It seemed that after an extended winter holiday, he would return to Kyiv on January 8. Suddenly, on the morning of January 5, the president was photographed in the capital of the Middle Eastern state of Oman, at the premises of the five-star Al Bustan Palace Ritz-Carlton Hotel. It turned out later, it was a private visit, allegedly funded by Zelensky’s wife. Though initially, the President’s Office claimed that the head of state flew to Oman to discuss trade and economic cooperation between the two countries, strengthen diplomatic relations, and attract investments.

According to journalists from Radio Free Europe, on January 7, a business jet with the registration T7-GEM flew to Oman. This aircraft belonged to Viktor Medvedchuk: Putin’s unofficial representative in Ukraine. A few hours later, a Bombardier business jet with the registration 9H-VJN flew into the capital’s airport of Oman, Muscat, from Moscow. An important detail: this aircraft had no orders for several days and had been in Stockholm since January 4. On January 7, the plane flew to Moscow, picked someone up, and flew out to Oman 2 hours later.

On the morning of January 8, in Tehran, Iranian air defenses mistakenly shot down a passenger plane of the Ukraine International Airlines. The crew and all passengers, mostly Iranian citizens flying through Kyiv to Toronto, died. It would seem that after such a catastrophe, the president should urgently return to Kyiv. But Zelensky does not rush back to Ukraine. He spends the entire day in Oman and returns to Kyiv on the night of January 9, 19 hours after the aviation disaster with the Ukrainian plane.

What follows is most intriguing. Evidently, on January 8, negotiations between Zelensky and the mysterious delegation from Moscow took place, after which the business jet from Kyiv, belonging to Medvedchuk, picks up unknown passengers and flies to Moscow. The aircraft with the registration 9H-VJN, which came from Moscow, takes Zelensky and Yermak to Kyiv.

Journalists from the Ukrainian edition of Radio Free Europe claim that Nikolai Patrushev flew in to negotiate with Zelensky and Yermak. However, they provided no evidence for this. It seems that indeed, unofficial negotiations between Russia and Ukraine took place in Oman. Apparently, they ended without results, as subsequent events indicated a lack of breakthrough in relations between the two countries.

>>> 41. The Theory of Yermak’s Betrayal

Table of contents

On January 18, 2022, about a month before the invasion, an anonymous Telegram channel “Pechersky Hill,” close to the former Speaker of Parliament Dmytro Razumkov, shared insider information. Allegedly, Yermak convinced Zelensky and his entire team that there would be no war. Therefore, Ukraine was not prepared for the invasion. Here is the text of that Telegram post:

“By the way, do you know what the Office of the President of Ukraine thinks about the possibility of a full-scale Russian invasion? The answer is − they don’t think about it at all. They are firmly convinced that there will be no invasion.

This explains why officials from the OP and Zelensky himself have not yet rushed to evacuate their families from the country and why the OP reacts with indifferent nonchalance to news like the Armed Forces of Ukraine being supplied with fuel for only 30%. Internal problems of the President’s Office are now of more concern than external threats.

The source of such exemplary optimism was the head of the President’s Office, Andriy Yermak. He convinced his entire team that he had long settled everything with the Russians, that Ukraine is not threatened by anything, and all movements of Russian troops are exclusively a nerve game with Europe. It’s to make gas prices jump on European exchanges due to the threat of war and to make uncooperative Europe agree to the launch of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Which, of course, will not be launched, because Yermak has already negotiated there too.

Yermak’s optimism managed to infect his surroundings to such an extent that messages are consistently sent to the “Servant of the People” faction in the Verkhovna Rada and to party centers in local areas: “Don’t panic. Everything is under control. There is no reason to worry”.

We have no idea how to comment on all this. The question arises, what does Zelensky do if it turns out that the head of his office… was mistaken? To put it mildly…”

Naturally, Yermak’s actions can be attributed to incompetence, considering that this trait is typical for people from Zelensky’s team. Especially since Yermak himself said that he “did not believe until the last” in the possibility of Russian invasion.

However, one should not forget that Zelensky received accurate information about the planned attack at least two days before the start of the war. Not to mention the American intelligence data starting from October-November.

Are two days a lot or a little? It is enough to blow up bridges on the border with Crimea and relocate some troops to the border with Belarus. Nevertheless, the President’s Office, represented by Yermak and Zelensky, even in those last days, prohibited any actions that could significantly increase the country’s defense capability. In August 2022, advisor to the head of the President’s Office Mykhailo Podoliak explained this by saying they “were psychologically not ready to blow up bridges”.

“That morning of February 24, we were psychologically not ready to blow up bridges. The first few hours we thought: we invested in comfort for people, how now to destroy all this? We thought that on the other side there were also people who would treat homes, bridges, and other infrastructure carefully,” Podoliak said.

Notice: Podoliak deliberately manipulates the date. It’s not just about the morning of February 24. Both Yermak and Zelensky already knew on February 22 that the war would start in two days. What role did Andriy Yermak play in Ukraine not being prepared for the invasion? Without any doubt, his role was key, as the head of the President’s Office had a significant influence on the incompetent Zelensky.

So who is Andriy Yermak, and why do many in Ukraine accuse him of treason, not just ordinary mistakes?

Andriy Yermak was born in 1971 in Kyiv. His mother is Russian from Saint Petersburg. His father worked at the Soviet embassy in Afghanistan in the 80s. Because of this, some Ukrainian journalists hinted at his father’s connection with the KGB. But Andriy Yermak categorically denies this. According to him, his father was a technical specialist in Afghanistan and had no relation to the Soviet special service.

In 1995, after graduating from the law faculty of the Institute of International Relations of Kyiv University, Andriy Yermak began working as a lawyer. Two years later, he founded his own law firm, which specialized in intellectual property protection. According to Yermak, his clients included representatives of Disney, Pixar, and Universal.

It should be noted that protecting copyright is not the most profitable business in Ukraine. Andriy Yermak apparently made his first big money by lobbying the interests of small business owners in Kyiv. Until 2006, about 3,500 small trade objects operated in the capital. Opening a trade kiosk of 4-6 square meters cost no more than $10,000 at that time. Each kiosk provided at least $500 of net profit every month.

After Leonid Chernovetsky was elected mayor of Kyiv, his team significantly expanded the issuance of permits for opening trade kiosks. Over five years, their number grew threefold: to 12,000. Most of those who received such permission did not even engage in business themselves: they leased kiosks to other entrepreneurs.

In 2010, power in the Kyiv mayor’s office changed. Instead of Chernovetsky, who fled abroad, Oleksandr Popov from Yanukovych’s team became the acting city head. In 2011, the new mayor decided to change the rules for kiosks. Now their owners were required to pay for the use of the capital’s land.

Entrepreneurs did not like the change in rules. They began to hold protest actions and united into a public organization called the “Association of Small Business Owners and Small Architectural Forms”. It was headed by lawyer Andriy Yermak.

The new organization began to protect the interests of the capital’s entrepreneurs. For example, it challenged the Kyiv City Council’s decision to ban the sale of alcohol and cigarettes in kiosks. For legal support, each kiosk owner paid Yermak monthly contributions.

In 2013, the future head of the President’s Office worked for some time as the manager of the elite clothing store “Sanahunt”. Yermak insists he only provided business consultations to the store owner and was not on the payroll of this company.

From there, Andriy Yermak’s career sharply took off. He became a film producer, participating in the creation of three quite successful films: “Squat 32”, “The Fight Rules”, and “The Line”. Since 2016, Yermak’s production company Garnet International Media Group received more than 53 million hryvnias (approximately $2 million) from the state for the production and promotion of films.

Yermak met Zelensky in 2010 when the comedian unexpectedly became the general producer of the “Inter” TV channel. It is known that for many years they regularly communicated and maintained friendly relations. There is even a photo taken in 2016 at a restaurant in the French city of Cannes, where Yermak dines at a table with Volodymyr and Olena Zelensky.

Before his appointment as head of the president’s office, Andriy Yermak was practically unknown to the general public: there were more colorful characters around Zelensky then. Journalists then liked to discuss Andriy Bohdan — the former lawyer of Kolomosky, who became the head of the President’s Office in June 2019.

Unlike Zelensky, who only jokes well according to a pre-written script, Bohdan was a real fountain of humor. He hardly resembled a lawyer and even less an influential politician. Bohdan had such a characteristic appearance for a comedic artist that even against the background of Zelensky, he gave the impression of someone who accidentally got into politics.

Zelensky and Bohdan worked together for only half a year. By the fall of 2019, the press received information that a large part of Bohdan’s duties was performed by his deputy Andriy Yermak. It is not known for certain what caused Zelensky to become uncomfortable working with the lawyer of his favorite oligarch, but in February 2020, Bohdan was forced to submit his resignation. Yermak became the head of the President’s Office.

>>> 40. The Secret Meeting in Oman

Table of contents

If the accusations against Volodymyr Zelensky were limited to corruption, it wouldn’t be so bad. Ukrainians had somehow gotten used to it. Then the name of the comedian from Kryvyi Rih would just stand next to Viktor Yanukovych. In terms of the scale of corruption, they were about on the same level. It’s just that under Zelensky, it wasn’t so noticeable because during wartime, more than half of all Ukraine’s state budget expenses were covered by the USA and other Western countries.

Many are beginning to forget that Yanukovych, after his flight, left Ukraine’s treasury empty. As of February 27, 2014, there were only 108,000 hryvnias or $11,300 left in the single treasury account. Almost everything had been plundered.

Even in December 2013, three months before his flight, Prime Minister Azarov begged Putin for a $15 billion loan because, at that moment, there was nothing to cover the state budget expenses. True, Putin prudently decided to give the money in tranches, so the Ukrainian government managed to receive only $3 billion.

Along with Yanukovych (though by different routes), fled to Russia: Ukraine’s Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, the head of the National Bank Serhiy Arbuzov, and almost all ministers. Viktor Yanukovych’s presidency ended in a complete disaster, both economically and politically.

Undoubtedly, something similar could await Zelensky. Even before the war, it was clear that this team was competent only in one thing: transferring state finances to dubious private companies. But everything changed at the end of February 2022. The war pushed corruption into the background. After the shock caused by the events in Bucha and Mariupol, a logical question arose: why did all this happen? Why wasn’t the Ukrainian army prepared for a full-scale invasion by Russia? After all, American intelligence reports that Putin was preparing for war appeared several months before the invasion.

The answer to this question is very simple. To strengthen the country’s defense capability, it was necessary to cut capital construction programs and transfer these funds to the army. Zelensky, having already tasted big money, categorically refused to do this. War did not fit into his logic, as undoubtedly, not only Ukraine but also Russia would suffer. Therefore, he thought that Putin would not dare to launch a full-scale invasion, and the situation would somehow calm down.

Famous Ukrainian volunteer Taras Chmut, always cautiously assessing Zelensky, in October 2023 stated that one of the main reasons for the poor preparation for the war was the lack of military personnel.

“We physically lacked people… Increasing the army to 300-350 thousand would have meant increasing the budget, but there was a position from the president that he had a different vision, so it turned out as it did,” Chmut said.

Chmut’s words are confirmed by an interview Zelensky gave on February 18, 2022, to the news agency RBC-Ukraine. The president stated that Ukraine could not afford to increase the army because then it would have to give up infrastructure projects.

“We can increase the army two or three times, but then, for example, we can’t build roads. For us, this is a problem,” Zelensky said.

Alright. Until December 2021, Putin’s rhetoric could be dismissed as intimidation. But in January, intelligence data clearly indicated that the Russian army was ready for invasion. Even assuming that Putin was bluffing and would back down at the last moment, the President of Ukraine still should have strengthened the state’s defense capability.

What was Zelensky doing in January-February 2022? After celebrating the New Year at the state residence Huta in the Carpathians, the president extended his holidays at the private ski resort Bukovel. There, on January 5, in a café, Zelensky and Yermak were photographed at a table with a bottle of alcohol.

As usual, in Bukovel, the president stayed in the same hotel as Ihor Kolomoisky, with their rooms even located on the same floor. Zelensky’s team once again called it a coincidence.

After the photo in the café with a bottle of vodka, the president spent several more days skiing, happily posing with tourists. Only on January 8 did he return to Kyiv.

On January 19, 2022, Zelensky made his most scandalous statement about “barbecues,” which would later be frequently recalled. He assured Ukrainians that there would be no war, life would continue as usual. “In May, as always − sun, weekends, barbecues… in summer − vacation”. The president advised citizens not to stock up on food and matches, explaining news of Russia’s preparation for war by claiming that Ukraine’s enemies wanted Ukrainians to have a constant sense of anxiety.

That same day, January 19, one of Zelensky’s closest associates, head of the parliamentary faction “Servant of the People” David Arakhamia in an interview with the magazine “Focus” stated that “Western media are spreading fakes,” and overall the situation is no worse than it was in the spring of 2021, when Russia also supposedly threatened war.

“Remember the escalation last spring? The situation as of today is no worse than that, roughly in the same range. Why are Western media escalating? Hard to say,” Arakhamia stated.

On January 23, the US State Department announced that some American diplomatic workers would be evacuated from Kyiv and urged US citizens to leave Ukraine as soon as possible.

On January 25, in his next video address, Volodymyr Zelensky reassured fellow citizens that the “situation is under control” and called on them “not to believe fakes.” That same day, he held a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, where he publicly disagreed with the US forecasts and hinted that Ukrainian intelligence knows the situation better.

“I think we have generally the same agenda, but we still want to discuss some things in detail because you are far abroad, and we are here, and I think we know some things a bit deeper about our state,” Zelensky stated.

On January 31, Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov assured that there is no reason for panic because the situation is identical to last year’s maneuvers of Russian troops at the borders of Ukraine.

“In April 2021, the combat component that Russia had amounted to 126,000 people. The number then and now is proportional. Disproportionate reaction… Then, the bold behavior of the Kremlin led to them receiving a call from the new President of the United States, Mr. Biden, and then a meeting in Geneva… Russia understood that this tactic works. And in the fall, it resorted to it again,” Reznikov said.

On February 11, the German news magazine Der Spiegel, citing sources in the German federal government, named the probable date of Russia’s attack on Ukraine — February 16. This information was provided to German officials by the CIA.

Commenting on this forecast, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov assured that the American intelligence data was incorrect: “As of today, we do not see that a large-scale offensive by the Russian Federation can start on the 16th or 17th.”

February 15. Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba stated that everything is under control: “The security situation remains tense but is fully under control. Ukraine is ready for any developments.”

Several months after the war began, when Ukrainian society began to ask more frequently who was to blame for the Russians being able to capture vast territories in a matter of days, Zelensky finally announced the official version. According to him, he deliberately did not inform about the threat of invasion for two reasons: to avoid provoking massive panic and to avoid damaging the Ukrainian economy.

“…If we had reported it – as some people, whom I will not name, wanted – then I would have lost $7 billion a month, starting from last October, and at the moment when the Russians actually attacked, they would have captured us in three days,” Zelensky said in an interview with The Washington Post in August 2022.

At first glance, the explanation of the President of Ukraine has a certain logic. He feared that millions of Ukrainian citizens, learning about the inevitability of war, would mass flee abroad, and enterprises would lose workers. Of course, one can question the moral aspect of this decision. On one scale, the loss of $7 billion for the economy, on the other — tens of thousands of people who died in Mariupol and other front-line cities due to the lack of evacuation. But Zelensky has yet to explain why, over four months, starting in October, as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, he failed to organize proper defense of the directions warned about by American intelligence.

Why weren’t museum valuables transported to safe regions? Why weren’t children from orphanages evacuated? Zelensky had enough time for all this. Instead of protecting his citizens, the President of Ukraine was vacationing at a ski resort and posing with tourists.

>>> 39. Person Number 2

Table of contents

Could Ukraine have avoided war in those days? Recalling the sequence of events, at a press conference on February 22, Vladimir Putin offered Ukraine several conditions for normalizing relations. However, upon closer inspection, these conditions, like the previous ultimatum addressed to the USA and NATO, were purely formal in nature. Given the peculiarity of Ukrainian legislation, they were impossible to fulfill.

For instance, Putin demanded that the Ukrainian authorities recognize the results of the referendum in Crimea and renounce joining NATO.

“The first thing that needs to be done is to recognize the will of the people living in Sevastopol and Crimea. How is this will any worse than what happened in Kosovo? It is not. The decision was made by parliament, here – by a popular referendum,” Putin stated.

The demands of the Russian president were not only impossible to fulfill but also deceptive. Firstly, the Crimean referendum was held illegally. At the time of its conduct on March 17, 2014, Ukrainian laws were in effect in Crimea, which clearly prohibited local authorities from initiating and conducting referendums on matters of territorial integrity. Secondly, the referendum was conducted under the full control of the occupying troops of a neighboring country. And most importantly, the Constitution of Ukraine prohibits any changes to legislation that violate the territorial integrity of the state.

Even if we assume that Zelensky decided to agree to Putin’s conditions, he would not have been able to implement these conditions into Ukrainian legislation. The only legal way to fulfill these conditions would have been to adopt a new Constitution of Ukraine, without Crimea as part of the country. But this procedure had to go through two sessions of parliament, even with a constitutional majority (⅔ of the deputy composition of the Verkhovna Rada). Considering the character and traditions of Ukrainian society, this could only lead to a new, now third, revolution.

Of course, Putin understood that Zelensky, even if he wished to, could not fulfill his conditions. The basic plan of the Russian president was a complete change of Ukrainian power and the return of President Yanukovych. It is quite possible that Putin already envisioned in his dreams how he would receive a parade on Khreshchatyk after a short victorious war. He was not going to wait half a year for Zelensky to change the Constitution. And will he change it at all? Putin expected that the Ukrainian government would collapse like a house of cards within a few days following the Afghan scenario.

As for Kyiv’s response to Putin’s ultimatum, the next day, on February 23, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal stated that Ukraine considers it impossible to fulfill the conditions for normalizing relations according to Vladimir Putin’s scenario:

“Fulfilling the conditions stated by the President of Russia to Ukraine contradicts the choice of Ukrainian society. For an independent, sovereign Ukraine and for me, as the Prime Minister of our country, this is impossible,” Shmyhal wrote on his Telegram channel.

>>> 38. Why Wasn’t Zelensky Preparing for War? The Answer is Simple

Table of contents