The High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine ordered on 14 May that Andriy Yermak, until last November the head of president Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, be remanded in custody. However, it allowed him to secure his release on bail. Yermak claimed he did not have that much money. And he was relying on friends. Perhaps even on the mysterious fortune‑teller Veronika?
Andriy Yermak was arrested on 14 May in the courtroom. He listened to the court’s decision to place him in custody in silence, standing with his hands behind his back. Until recently one of the most powerful men in Ukraine, he is suspected, among other things, of money laundering and of being a member of an organised criminal group. He faces up to twelve years in prison.
Already on 11 May the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (Nabu) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (Sap) informed Yermak that he was a suspect in a major corruption case. With money obtained through criminal means, primarily corruption, he and several influential politicians and businessmen allegedly wanted to build luxury villas near Kyiv.
This was probably one of the reasons why the judge set Yermak’s bail so high – 140 million hryvnias (€2.7m).
After the hearing, Yermak told the unusually large number of journalists in the courtroom that he did not have enough money to meet bail, but that he had “many friends and acquaintances” and would now try to ask them to contribute towards it. Asked whether he was prepared to go to prison, the former closest associate of Ukrainian president Zelensky replied: “I was not preparing for that.” He then added that when the full-scale Russian invasion began, he had not left Kyiv. “I am a strong enough person,” he said.
Among the evidence pointing to Yermak’s guilt is his wiretapped telephone conversations. These, incidentally, attracted the greatest interest from journalists. In one of the recordings, Yermak speaks with a person he has saved in his phone contacts as “Veronika Feng Shui Office”.
The fortune‑teller who advised on who should be prime minister
According to Sap investigators, however, Yermak did not consult Veronika about esotericism or energy zones, as the term feng shui might suggest, but about whom to appoint to the highest offices – with the exception of the very highest one, the presidency, which has been held since 2019 by Yermak’s close friend Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Among other things, Yermak discussed with Veronika the appointment of health minister Viktor Lyashko and deputy head of the president’s office Oleh Taratov.
The anti-corruption authorities have repeatedly assured the public that the head of state was not implicated in the corruption case.
Nevertheless, Yermak was said to have consulted Veronika not only on personnel matters, but also on how to proceed in talks with foreign partners. He himself was many times the head of the Ukrainian delegation in negotiations in Europe, Asia and the United States.
Yermak knows practically all European leaders, including French president Macron. Source: Andriy Yermak, Telegram
The investigative project Schemes of the Radio Svoboda station revealed Veronika Anikievych as a 51‑year‑old resident of Kyiv who advertises herself as an “astrology consultant”. Yermak categorically rejected the idea that he consulted fortune‑tellers on the appointment of top politicians.
However, he has Veronika’s name on his phone, and the wiretaps are also authentic, according to Nabu. Anikievych has a Telegram account called Lunnyje chasy (Moon Hours), which deals with astrology. She graduated from Kherson State Technical University, Faculty of Financial Analysis and Management.
Andriy Yermak and the fortune‑teller Veronika. Source: Stas Kozliuk, FB, Schemes, Radio Svoboda
Who is this man really, and how powerful is he, the man who, together with president Zelensky, has in effect been running Ukraine for the past five years?
Fifty-five-year-old, childless and unmarried Yermak was forced to step down as head of the president’s office on 28 November last year after searches were carried out at his home and in his office. At that time, the talk was mainly about the Mindas affair (a corruption scandal in the energy sector involving $100m), whose main actor was Tymur Mindich. He managed to go into hiding in Israel.
Both Mindich and Yermak are linked to president Zelensky through the film industry.
Mindich co-owned the film company Kvartal 95, which was founded by Zelenskyy. Source: Studio Kvartal 95
Both of them belonged to Zelensky’s close circle of friends and associates prior to becoming president, while playing one in the famous series Servant of the People. When he then won the presidential election in 2019, it was due in part to voter desire to drive out corrupt politicians, break their ties with oligarchs and elect someone “from the common people”, a fighter for the rights of the poor and the nameless.
However, Zelensky brought into politics from show business a number of people who, like him, had no experience whatsoever in running a state. Including Yermak – a lawyer and expert on intellectual property and copyright – and Mindich, who co-owned the production company Kvartal 95, the studio Zelensky founded in 2003 and where he filmed his satirical shows.
In the series Servant of the People, Zelensky – as the teacher Holoborodko – received the news of his appointment as president in his underwear. Source: YouTube, Studio Kvartal 95
Yermak, who has known Zelensky since 2011, gradually built himself a truly privileged position. Apparently also because he and Zelenskyy “clicked” personally.
From the full‑scale invasion in February 2022, the two men spent practically all their time together – in critical moments they slept in the same bunker and passed the time waiting for the next air raid by doing sports – and some media wrote that Yermak was able to manipulate Zelensky and that he perhaps had more influence than the president himself. The Financial Times, for example, quoted one Western ambassador as saying: “He is the president, the prime minister, the foreign minister, all the ministers rolled into one…”
Among foreign diplomats there was even a joke going around: “Go to Kyiv to see Zelensky so that you can meet Yermak.”
The famous video in which president Zelensky proves that after Russia’s attack on Ukraine on 24 February 2022 no one from his team fled Kyiv. Source: The Sun, YouTube
Even though Yermak has no education in international politics, Zelensky relied on him when shaping foreign-policy positions. When he was elected president, he first appointed Yermak as his assistant for foreign policy. At that time, the unmistakable heavyweight Yermak quickly became close to US politicians close to the then president Donald Trump.
It is necessary here to mention a scandal that has probably shaped Trump’s attitude towards Zelensky to this day, and around which many uncertainties still linger.
Trump versus Biden and the Ukrainian trail
Trump’s people used Yermak as an intermediary in 2019 to put pressure on Zelensky to discredit Joe Biden, his main rival, during the following US election campaign.
Biden’s son sat on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma and received high fees at a time when Biden was US vice-president. Burisma became the centre of a corruption scandal, which offered an opportunity to discredit the Bidens. But Zelensky did not comply with Trump’s request for a special investigation into the Bidens’ role in the scandal.
Nevertheless, Yermak maintained very warm relations with US Republicans, which he used especially after he became head of the president’s office in February 2020. In 2024, Time magazine included him among the hundred most influential people in the world.
Yermak is now remanded in a cell; two years ago he was among the most influential men in the world. Source: Andriy Yermak, Telegram
No doubt this was also helped by the now-legendary video in which president Zelensky, on the day Russian missiles hit Ukrainian cities, told the world from bombed Kyiv: “We are here.” Yermak stood at his side at that moment and he too insisted that the country’s leadership did not need an evacuation plane, but weapons.
Yermak spent the following months and years at Zelensky’s side. “They are like Siamese twins,” western journalists wrote.
The public does not trust eminences
In addition to Yermak coordinated Zelenskyy’s diplomatic efforts to secure foreign support, he also appears to have interfered in military command. The Financial Times wrote that in 2022 he pushed for the defence of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut and opposed military officers who were proposing a strategic withdrawal. In Bakhmut the Ukrainian army then suffered enormous losses.
In 2023, Politico called him a “green cardinal” who has a habit of being photographed in khaki uniform, even though he is not a soldier. Much like Zelensky.
Yermak not only travelled around the world on Zelensky’s behalf, skilfully negotiating financial, military and humanitarian support, but also met with top government leaders, conducted confidential talks and helped shape a number of important interstate agreements.
Yermak with Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen. Source: Andriy Yermak, Telegram
At home in Ukraine, however, public distrust of him was growing. People saw in him precisely what Zelensky, the servant of the people, was originally supposed to rid them of – a “green eminence”, an intriguing careerist who used his influence and position for personal enrichment. According to sociologists, almost 70 percent of Ukrainians did not trust him shortly before he was removed from the post of head of the president’s office.
It was precisely public anger that forced the president to get rid of his favoured associate. Yermak also had to leave the National Security and Defence Council. At the time, he declared that he would reopen his law firm and also go to fight on the eastern front against the Russian aggressors. To this day, however, he did not manage to carry out this plan and remained in Kyiv.
A timed attack, or a fight against corruption?
According to the website Ukrainska Pravda, even after he was removed from office, Yermak continued to drive around the Ukrainian capital in a convoy of government cars with a large security detail and to meet senior politicians. Ukrainian journalists say he demonstrably spoke, for example, with the current chief Ukrainian negotiator in the peace talks, Rustem Umerov.
Yermak continues to claim that all the accusations against him are unfounded and that the whole process “is taking place under pressure”.
In doing so, he suggests that it is a political process. In the past, doubts have been voiced, including from people around Zelenskyy and some Ukrainian journalists, as to whether the anti-corruption bodies Nabu and Sap do not serve “foreign interests”.
Specifically, attention was drawn to “certain links” between Nabu and Russia. This gave rise to suspicions that corruption scandals in Ukraine were being steered from abroad and served to exert pressure on the country’s leadership, headed by Zelensky, in any potential peace talks with Moscow. However, evidence of such facts has never been produced, and no one has confirmed that the timing of Yermak’s arrest was orchestrated with Moscow’s help.
On social media, however, this version is being discussed.
The “astrologer” herself, Veronika Anikievych, commented on Yermak’s detention and reports of their contacts by saying: “This is a special trumpo-putin operation aimed at Ukraine’s capitulation.” Among other things, Anikievych also mentioned the name of Czech media businessman Tomáš Fiala, chief executive of Dragon Capital, which, in addition to numerous properties, owns Ukrainska Pravda and the NV website. According to Yermak’s acquaintance Veronika, it is precisely Fiala’s newspapers that cooperate with Nabu and Sap and “spread nonsense”.
With an ankle bracelet and only in Kyiv
Even if Yermak were now to pay bail, he is not allowed to leave Kyiv, let alone Ukraine. He must also surrender his passports, report for questioning and wear an electronic ankle bracelet. In addition, he must not associate with other suspects in his case, known as Dynasty – the name of an unfinished elite settlement near Kyiv where Yermak is allegedly also supposed to have a villa.
For an ordinary Ukrainian, the amount of 140 million hryvnias, or roughly €2.7m is astronomical.
In terms of the size of the bail, this is a high amount for Ukraine, but it is not a record. In 2023 a court set bail for oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky – who, incidentally, also played an important role in Zelensky’s life (the series Servant of the People was broadcast on his TV channel 1+1) – at almost four billion hryvnias. Kolomoisky did not pay, not even his rich and influential friends helped him, and he is still in a remand prison in Kyiv.