Diplomacy, corruption, politics
Yermak is not gone. Political stasis disintegrating. The true meaning of the November corruption scandal.
On November 10 of this year, Ukraine’s western-funded anti-corruption organs went public with its massive graft investigation — ‘Operation Midas’ — against top figures in Zelensky’s inner circle. The western and Ukrainian press called it the greatest scandal of Zelensky’s presidency. Even the likes of the Atlantic Council were unhappy.
And then just over a week later, Trump launched a still-ongoing diplomatic offensive for Zelensky to agree to a compromise peace with Russia. The western press often worried that Zelensky’s weakness at these negotiations has been compounded due to the revelations of ‘Midas’.
Naturally, many made a fairly logical assumption — Ukraine’s anti-corruption organs, created at the prodding and on the funding of the US government in 2015, have been probing Zelensky’s entourage to increase American leverage over Ukraine in negotiations. Trump wants an end to the war in Ukraine, and is using graft allegations to get them.
In Ukraine, it is worth noting that the only proponents of this theory were fanatical loyalists of the Zelensky clique. In their eyes, all criticism of Zelensky is a vile Trump-Putin-Soros plot to ‘destroy Ukraine and force it to capitulate’.
In fact, Zelensky is not simply in a conflict with either Trump or the EU. He is in a conflict with both. Trump wants him to agree to his peace deal, and the Europeans want him not only to continue the war, but to give up substantial power to European-allied/funded agents of influence. Here’s how a political source to the Ukrainian publication strana put it in a December 18 article:
Zelensky is currently trying to resist two mega-projects being promoted by global players in Ukraine. He is making enormous efforts to disrupt Trump’s project for a deal with Russia through ending the war in Ukraine. But, on the other hand, he is also obstructing the European project, which aims to take control of the foreign influence structures created by the Americans and use them to dominate internal processes. This carries the risk that, at some point, he could simply get caught in the gears. On top of that, one must consider the difficult situation at the front, in the energy sector, and the issues surrounding the stability of external support. These problems could further exacerbate the situation.
One of the main problems with the theory that Trump was behind the corruption probe is that the anti-corruption organs — and Ukraine’s broader ‘civil society’ of liberal nationalist NGOs and journalists — despise Trump. They were created by USAID and Soros’s Open Society Foundations and played a major role in the 2016 Russiagate affair. And if you read the publications of these so-called ‘Sorosites’, it is full of righteous anti-Trump vitriol. They have the same tone as, say, the NYT does.
The other problem is that the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutors Office (NABU and SAPO), the organs running ‘Operation Midas’, aren’t actually directly sponsored by USAID. Other anti-corruption NGOs are funded by US state agencies, but the NABU and SAPO depend on the Ukrainian state budget.
And nowadays, the main benefactors of the Ukrainian budget are the Europeans. The Europeans, in contrast to Trump’s Washington, certainly aren’t interested in pressuring Ukraine into an end to the war. On the contrary, the Europeans are pressuring Ukraine not to accept any ‘premature’ peace deal. Not nearly enough Slavs have died, in the opinion of the enlightened Europeans.
That’s why I always felt it was more likely that the corruption probes against Zelensky had the aim of pressuring Zelensky, keeping him on his toes, so as to prevent him from signing a peace deal with Russia. To remind him that he is not a free actor, but must do as the sponsors say. That he must — to point to one very shrill European demand in the weeks leading up to Operation Midas — mobilize all the population for war, not just those older than 25.
But there’s another important reason why I don’t think Operation Midas had the aim of pushing Zelensky to accept Trump’s peace plan. This is very simple — chronology.
If the Midas really had aimed at pushing Zelensky to comply with Trump’s plan, then it clearly failed. Despite a diplomatic offensive of unprecedented seriousness, Trump has so far failed to get Zelensky onboard. Zelensky’s rhetoric does at time seem to be slightly thawing, but he still rejects territorial losses and abandonment of NATO-entry, the key Russian demands.
What is most important is that as soon as Trump’s peace plan got off the ground, Operation Midas ceased its dramatic exposes of corruption. On November 28, the NABU raided Andriy Yermak. Yermak, head of Zelensky’s presidential administration, resigned the same day. And after that, nothing more. Radio silence from the NABU on the great Operation Midas. Yermak still hasn’t even been charged with anything.
The first two weeks or so after the first Midas raids on November 10 were filled with with hyper-dramatic revelations. It seemed like Zelensky’s chances were never worse. The likes of the Financial Times released editorials calling for Zelensky to relinquish power to a coalition government.
But then by early December, top Sorosite media publications like Ukrainska Pravda made an about-face — with Yermak gone, they wrote, Zelensky's governance has drastically improved. No need to rock the boat anymore.
From a state of frenzied struggle between November to 28, Ukrainian politics has shifted to a silent limbo.
The conclusion I make from this is straightforward. The anti-corruption probe against Zelensky was not launched on Trump’s initiative. If any foreign powers stood behind it, it was the Europeans, with the aim of pushing Zelensky to up the war effort.
Seeing Zelensky weakened, it is entirely possible Trump decided this was his time to strike and force Kiev to comply.
Seeing in turn that the corruption scandal around Zelensky threatened to give Trump the leverage he needed to end the war, the same liberal nationalist forces (‘Sorosites’) that had originally pushed Operation Midas shut it down. The symbolic move of getting rid of the scapegoat Yermak was enough.
The fact is that though the liberal nationalist opposition may criticize Zelensky for centralizing power and keeping them out of government, they are quite ready to abandon those criticisms if the threat of peace appears on the horizon.
Along with the threat of a Washington-imposed ‘capitulation’, Ukraine’s liberal nationalist opposition also paused its criticism of Zelensky for another reason — the possibility that the EU would not be able to fund its 2026 budget. But though the EU didn’t manage to force its members into agreeing on handing over confiscated Russian assets to Ukraine yesterday, they did agree on a 90 billion euro loan. This will be enough to keep Ukraine limping on for around a year or so, bar major frontline catastrophes.
The twin threats of Trumpian peace and loss of European finances seem to be less urgent. In any case, Ukraine’s political class, Zelensky and his opponents alike, clearly hope that they can dismiss Washington’s desires as long as they get a steady supply of Euros.
But this also means that the forced political quietude in Ukrainian domestic politics is short-lived. The NABU is set to return to destabilizing Zelensky’s grip on power. With European assistance guaranteed, they can now continue with their struggle against Zelensky.
Things are also highly tense within the elite. Zelensky’s continued inability — or unwillingness — to appoint a successor to Yermak in the presidential administration implies two things. First, that there are a number of strong fractions inside the Zelensky elite vying for power. Second, that Yermak remains powerful enough to manage things behind the scenes — hence no replacement is necessary, since Yermak isn’t gone to begin with.
We’ll begin with the latest NABU intrigues, and end with the million dollar question — where is Yermak? And who will replace him? As it turns out, the supposedly banished court vizier is still paying Zelensky’s private residence nightly visits…
A sign of things to come
On December 17, NABU detective Ruslan Magomedrasulov gave a telling statement to liberal nationalist media. He had been released from imprisonment at the start of December — he is thought to have been targeted for his prominent role in Operation Midas.
Anyway, in his latest interview from three days ago, he told Ukrainska Pravda that Midas implicates the highest figures of Ukrainian politics:
Initially, our work concerned the Ministry of Defense and Carlson’s activities [Zelensky insider Timur Mindich] in that area. That was precisely the main motive for launching the investigation. I never believed that Mindich was a key figure in the implementation of all these projects. From the standpoint of scale and execution mechanics, that is simply impossible
When the interviewer asked whether representatives of Ukraine’s highest leadership appear in the case materials of Operation Midas, he replied “I hope so.”
In any attempt to explain why exactly Midas revelations have ceased, Magomedrasulov coyly retorted that “not all knowledge can become evidence in court,” so the materials will include “only those facts that we are able to prove properly.
Another sign of what is to come came on December 20. Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, a premier liberal nationalist publication, wrote that top figures in the Zelensky administration fear a resumption of Midas revelations. The person in question in Rustem Umerov, the man who replaced Yermak as Ukraine’s chief negotiator in late November. Umerov was minister of defense back in 2024, when Operation Midas began. As Magomedrasulov said, Midas intended to target Umerov and his ministry from the start.
The targeting of Umerov is significant for another reason. As I’ve written here and here, Umerov’s likely US citizenship and the confirmed fact that his family and assets are all in the USA has led many liberal nationalists to be suspicious of him. They fear he is liable to comply with Trump’s ‘capitulatory’ peace plan. I believe it is quite possible to see Umerov as a representative of the Washington vector in Ukrainian politics, while the liberal nationalists are representatives of the London vector.
And the NABU targeting of Umerov could certainly be seen as more evidence that the anti-corruption probe has the aim of preventing attempts at brokering a deal with Russia.
Back to the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia article. It dwells at length on Umerov’s ties to the US elite, claiming that Umerov tried to broker a deal with the FBI to prevent any cooperation with the NABU. Apparently, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino were involved in Umerov’s complex Istanbul intrigue:
