Ukraine names Zelensky’s former chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, as a suspect in a major money laundering case

Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) have launched investigative actions against Andriy Yermak, the country’s former presidential chief of staff, Ukrainska Pravda and RBC-Ukraine reported, citing sources.

Update. NABU and SAPO subsequently announced that they had exposed an organized group linked to the laundering of 460 million hryvnias (more than $10 million) through elite construction projects outside Kyiv. They named Andriy Yermak as one of the group’s members. He was served with a notice of suspicion under the article on laundering (money laundering) of property obtained through criminal means (Part 3 of Article 209 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code).

Ukrainska Pravda published several photographs of Yermak near a vehicle.

Verkhovna Rada deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak was the first to report on the investigative actions against Yermak. He suggested Yermak was being served with a notice of suspicion, though he later allowed that it might simply be a search.

Andriy Yermak had been considered one of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s closest allies; media described him as the second most influential person in the country after the president. In November 2025, Zelensky announced that Yermak had submitted his resignation, amid a corruption scandal involving embezzlement at Energoatom.

Shortly after his dismissal, Yermak announced that he was heading to the front. In mid-January 2026, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, responding to a request from Rada deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak, reported that Yermak had not contacted any TRCs — the Ukrainian equivalent of military enlistment offices — to request military service. In March, it emerged that Yermak had taken the helm of a committee established under the National Bar Association of Ukraine to address the protection of victims of armed aggression against Ukraine — a committee he himself had proposed.