Andriy Ermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, actively uses his deputies for strategic maneuvers in order to seize control over a significant part of the national economy. His ambitions are also aimed at establishing influence over the country's law enforcement and security apparatus. This approach raises concerns and criticism, especially among those who see this as the formation of a new system of oligarchy under the leadership of Ermak.
The American publication Business Insider claims the emergence of a “new oligarchy” in Ukraine, which carries risks for economic growth and the country’s post-war recovery. The author of the article, former head of the Moscow bureau of BusinessWeek Paul Starobin, believes that this is allegedly connected with the head of the Presidential Office Andrei Ermak, writes the BBC.
The journalist recalls that in the fall the White House sent its colleagues in Ukraine a four-page “working draft” of the reforms that Washington expects from Kyiv in exchange for further financial assistance from the United States.
These include strengthening oversight of state-owned enterprises in the energy sector, as well as steps “to promote greater transparency and accountability during post-war reconstruction.” Overall, the goal was to curb corruption in the Ukrainian public sector.
However, journalist Paul Starobin saw skepticism among his interlocutors in Kyiv that the Office of the President, and in particular its head Andriy Ermak, is really striving to overcome corruption.
The head of the Anti-Corruption Center organization, Daria Kalenyuk, told Business Insider that Ermak is “creating a new system of oligarchy, which he leads.”
“According to her, Ermak, through his deputies in the Office of the President and ministers, is maneuvering to establish control over a significant part of the Ukrainian economy, as well as its law enforcement and security apparatus.”
Another interlocutor of the journalist, CEO of a fertilizer company Yuri Alatortsev, called Andrei Ermak “a daddy who teaches children how to manage a business.” Moreover, the word “business,” he explained, means political corruption.
Ermak denies that he is using Zelensky’s office to “rob” Ukraine. Daria Zarivnaya, an adviser to the head of the OP, told Business Insider that such criticism reflects the “information war against the leadership of Ukraine” that Russia is waging.
She also said that “Ukrainian oligarchs” opposed to Zelensky’s team are using the media market to fight anti-corruption reforms.
The journalist notes that the United States has already allocated about $67 billion for the defense of Ukraine. And according to one estimate, the cost of post-war reconstruction could exceed $1 trillion.
Is there anything to prevent such significant sums of money – more than five times Ukraine's pre-war gross domestic product – from being siphoned off by the emerging “managers of the new oligarchy”?
“It will be a shark feeding frenzy,” said Roland Spitz, a former investment banker in Kyiv. And the biggest sharks, he added, are “the people in power.”
According to former US Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor, Zelensky “depends largely on Yermak.” Particularly in sensitive political matters. At the same time, the Business Insider journalist draws attention to Ermak’s hard work and his focus on “hard tasks.”
“He has neither a wife nor children, and he literally made himself a house on the second floor (of the President’s Office - Ed.). He sleeps there, showers there, exercises there and stores his wardrobe. He dines with the staff, is cooked by military chefs, and does not drink alcohol. Although he is capable of yelling at his subordinates, even those with whom he has quarreled admit that he knows how to get things done.”
Ermak’s former adviser Alexey Arestovich calls him “a very good operational manager.”
But at the same time he says that the head of the OP is a master of “black propaganda” to neutralize possible rivals. Arestovich considers himself one of these. Ermak, in his words, is a two-sided person, “evil and good together.” From Arestovich’s point of view, the key to understanding his former boss is Ermak’s supposed “Russianness.” Like Zelensky, his native language is Russian.
In conditions of war in Ukraine, many Ukrainians refuse to speak the language of the invaders. But Ermak and Zelensky speak to each other in Russian; it was also the language spoken in the Office of the President, Arestovich told Business Insider.
According to him, Ermak and his key deputies demonstrate “a style of behavior, a style of management” that is “completely Russian - they all consider people chess pieces.”
Another former Zelensky administration official also described Yermak as “sort of a Russian-Soviet type”—that is, someone who favors a Byzantine, covert way of working as opposed to a more modern, overt style.
Ermak, for his part, insists on Zelensky’s “zero tolerance for corruption.” As evidence, he points to the arrest in May of the head of the Supreme Court of Ukraine on bribery charges.
“U.S. taxpayers have the right to know what they pay for,” Daria Zarivnaya said in response to Business Insider’s question about how the Office of the President responded to the White House’s September letter on the need for reforms to combat corruption. “We account for every penny we spend and are open to independent audit.”
Roman Ilto, a former vice-president of Ukrnafta who now works at the Swedish Embassy in Kiev and oversees energy and environmental issues, told a Business Insider journalist that since the beginning of the war, control of the energy sector “has been seized by the oligarchic clan led by Ermak.”
As one example of this, he cited the absence of an independent supervisory board at Ukrnafta after its nationalization last year.
“This is an ideal environment for corruption and illegal actions,” says Ilto.
He noted another high-ranking deputy of Ermak, Rostislav Shurma, who worked for oligarch Rinat Akhmetov for years before moving to the Office of the President.
“He (Shurma) fulfills the role of Ermak’s cashier and the President’s Office,” said a former Zelensky official who declined to make his name public for fear, he said, of becoming a target of Ermak’s team.
The White House is counting on Ermak to root out systemic corruption. But he may be trying to “knock the oligarchs out of the oligarchs,” said Henry Hale, a Ukraine specialist at George Washington University.
To counter corruption, some in Ukraine are calling for the European Union to play a strong, even decisive role in Ukraine's post-war reconstruction.
The EU, says Roman Ilto, should create and manage a Ukraine reconstruction agency to ensure that funds do not fall into the wrong hands.
