Why hasn’t the biggest corruption scandal of Zelensky’s presidency forced him into political or diplomatic concessions?
Earlier this month, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) uncovered an embezzlement scheme at Energoatom, the state-owned operator of the country’s nuclear power plants. It is the most serious corruption scandal of Volodymyr Zelensky’s six-year presidency, and the case was announced 10 days before the Trump administration surprised Kyiv with a new 28-point peace plan. Washington worked with the Kremlin’s representatives on that agreement, and President Trump expects Ukraine to sign on before Thanksgiving.
Last week, Zelensky addressed the nation, warning that Ukraine is at one of the most difficult points in its history, facing a choice between its “dignity” and U.S. support. He also said achieving a just peace would be easier if politicians and the public stopped their “infighting.” The speech drew a mixed reaction, but it’s hard to deny that pressures both foreign and domestic weigh on Zelensky’s administration. As the global media refocuses on diplomacy, Meduza reviews the corruption scandal in Kyiv, the reasons the president has stood behind his controversial chief of staff, and how the case affects Zelensky’s room to maneuver in peace talks.
Why did embezzlement at Energoatom trigger such a major scandal?
The officials who ran the Energoatom scheme collected kickbacks of 10–15 percent from the company’s contracts. The payoffs we know about total more than $100 million, making it the biggest corruption scandal ever discovered in Ukraine (which is no stranger to large-scale graft). Those responsible for fleecing Energoatom’s contractors exploited a wartime moratorium on debt collection against the state company, demanding bribes before paying for goods and services already delivered. This profiteering bankrupted several suppliers. It also guided decisions to build protective structures around Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, even as millions endured prolonged power outages. To ordinary Ukrainians, officials showed outrageous cynicism, treating these conditions as a “routine opportunity for gain.”
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NABU’s revelations also implicated past and current members of the president’s cabinet, as well as his friend and former business partner Timur Mindich (who provided Zelensky’s security detail and armored car during his 2019 election campaign). Potential beneficiaries include former Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov and two energy ministers, Herman Halushchenko and Svitlana Hrynchuk (both dismissed after the allegations were published). There’s even a Russian connection: the laundering scheme operated out of an office in downtown Kyiv owned by the family of Andriy Derkach, the former Verkhovna Rada member who fled to Russia in 2022 and later became a senator there. Additionally, Derkach’s former assistant, Igor Mironyuk, is a key suspect in NABU’s investigation.
Why has the scandal prompted calls to dismiss Zelensky’s chief of staff?
Zelensky has publicly backed NABU’s investigation and imposed sanctions on Mindich. However, National Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov also appears in case materials released by investigators. According to NABU, in the summer of 2025, when Umerov was still serving as defense minister, Mindich tried to profit from supplying the military with substandard bulletproof vests. He approached Umerov, pressing to get the army to accept them. Umerov has confirmed that he was in contact with Mindich but insists these conversations had no bearing on his actions as defense minister.
Update: On November 28, anti-corruption authorities searched Andriy Yermak’s home. Just hours later, President Zelensky announced that his chief of staff and lead peace negotiator had resigned. A decree on Yermak’s dismissal, signed by Zelensky, was published on the official website of the President’s Office shortly afterwards.
So far, Zelensky’s powerful chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, isn’t named in NABU’s released materials, but there’s widespread speculation that he was aware of the theft at Energoatom, given its scale and his key role in the administration. Additionally, Verkhovna Rada member Yaroslav Zhelezniak claims that Yermak’s name appears in the thousands of hours of conversations NABU recorded during its 15-month-long investigation. Yermak’s reported behavior since the case was announced has also raised suspicions. Ukrainska Pravda reported that Yermak ordered police officials loyal to the president to prepare a criminal case against Oleksandr Klymenko, head of Ukraine’s Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP). The same news outlet also reported preparations to bring criminal charges against David Arakhamia, the leader of the president’s Servant of the People faction in parliament, who has long had a strained relationship with Yermak.
Amid reports of these threats, Servant of the People officials abandoned efforts to pursue Yermak’s dismissal after the president made it clear that he stands by his chief of staff. Zelensky later sent Yermak to join peace talks with the U.S. “He’s rescuing him from suspicion,” one of Ukrainska Pravda’s sources suggested at the time.
What is Zelensky’s position on corruption? Why does he shield Yermak?
In a recent article published in The Atlantic, journalist Simon Shuster wrote: “Corruption scandals have often provoked Zelensky’s sense of loyalty. He tends to see them as unfair, a sign of nefarious interests working against him.” When Shuster interviewed Zelensky in the fall of 2023 about a scandal that forced him to dismiss Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, the president complained that some of Kyiv’s Western allies use corruption “to cover up their failure to help Ukraine.”
Nearly two years later, when Zelensky tried to strip NABU and SAP of their independence after their investigations began targeting his inner circle, Western allies joined domestic protesters in pressuring him to reverse the decision.
Western leaders have responded more cautiously to “Mindichgate.” In the European Union, officials praised the work of anti-corruption investigators, while the White House appeared to ignore the scandal completely. Behind closed doors, however, U.S. negotiators have raised the issue. According to Ukrainska Pravda, U.S. Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll brought it up during his meeting with Zelensky on November 20. In response, the Ukrainian president reportedly said he would be unable to “move forward” if his closest associates were charged with corruption, claiming that it would jeopardize any peace talks.
Does this scandal really constrain Zelensky’s freedom to maneuver in the peace talks?
The new U.S. peace plan for the war in Ukraine has had a twofold effect for Zelensky. On the one hand, it’s meant a welcome reprieve from the Energoatom scandal. But the immense pressure from Washington to accept a deal that many equate with capitulation also comes at a time when Zelensky is weakened domestically. The timing has led some commentators to speculate that Kremlin special envoy Kirill Dmitriev leaked the 28-point peace plan to catch Zelensky at a low point. Admittedly, similar motivations could guide the White House’s foreign policy, given Donald Trump’s known eagerness to end the war, one way or another.
However, Zelensky’s political vulnerability could make him even less willing to make unpopular concessions in any deal with Moscow. Nico Lange, a former senior German defense official who is involved in European efforts to help Ukraine, told The Wall Street Journal: “No Ukrainian president — and especially not a weakened Zelensky — has a mandate to agree to anything like this.” So long as Ukraine’s political and social leaders reject the concessions contained in Washington’s original 28-point plan, corruption scandals simply lack the power to force a president to surrender to Russia.