The home of Andriy Yermak was searched Friday by investigators probing an alleged $100 million kickback scheme.

The home of Andriy Yermak was searched Friday by investigators probing an alleged $100 million kickback scheme.

A top Ukrainian official at the heart of peace talks resigned on Friday after being thrust into the center of a massive corruption scandal, threatening to further weaken President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a crucial moment in negotiations to end Russia’s war.

Andriy Yermak’s, Zelenskyy’s powerful chief of staff, decision to quit came hours after his home was searched early Friday by investigators with Ukraine’s National Anticorruption Bureau, the NABU, which is leading the $100 million kickback probe involving the country’s energy sector.

Zelenskyy said in a later video statement that Yermak had handed in his resignation and he was looking for his replacement. “Russia really wants Ukraine to make mistakes,” he said. “There will be no mistakes on our part.”

  • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    2 hours ago

    Called it a year ago.

    Won’t be long before we find out Zelensky was enriching himself off money intended for the war effort, just like the Karzais and Husseins of the world before him.

  • comrade_twisty@feddit.orgEnglish
    372·
    9 hours ago

    Obviously corruption is bad and needs to be stopped, but I am pretty sure the CIA is involed in the recent discoveries. It just seems to fit perfectly into Trumps agenda to destabilize the Ukrainian Government right now.

    • cecilkorik@lemmy.caEnglish
      253·
      9 hours ago

      The US is not “discovering” the corruption, the US is creating the corruption.

      Ukraine meanwhile is caught between two (self-styled and failing) superpowers through little to no fault of their own, and that is obviously not a great place to be.

      • real_squids@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        181·
        8 hours ago

        lol do you seriously think corrupt ukrainian officials wouldn’t be corrupt if it wasn’t for the US? And place some respect on anti-corruption institutions and the people who came out in support of them when they were at risk of being gutted.

        • cygnus@lemmy.caEnglish
          16·
          8 hours ago

          Yeah, Ukraine was part of Russia for like 200 years, and had the same culture of embezzlement and graft. It takes a long time to unlearn that, but they’ve been working hard at it (as evidenced by this anti-corruption agency)

          • FaceDeer@fedia.io
            11·
            7 hours ago

            Indeed. Although it’s painful to see these things happening at such crucial junctures to such crucial individuals, overall it’s a good thing that corruption is being rooted out. The process of rooting out corruption will of course expose a bunch of corruption in the process, but better that it be exposed than to let it continue to fester.

            It would have been lovely to flip a magical switch the moment Ukraine left Russia’s orbit that made corruption go away, but that switch doesn’t exist. Corruption probes and prosecutions are what will cause the change to happen.