16 people who were there last year disappeared from the list of advisers to the Office of the President and its head. In the team of President Vladimir Zelensky, since the fall of 2023, the number of freelance advisers has been halved, and the post of first assistant to the president has become vacant.
Moreover, the positions of Advisor to the Office of the President and Advisor to Deputy Heads of the Office of the President have disappeared. But the OP decided to hide official information about Andrei Ermak’s freelance advisers. But after a clarifying request from the HONEST Movement, information about these figures was still found. The OP decided not to deny the work of Mikhail Podolyak, Sergei Leshchenko and Daria Zarivna, who are very active in public activities on behalf of the OP.
How the Office of the President is trying to hide the list of figures and providing radically different answers to public requests and why the list of advisers and deputies of the OP has decreased
Media, but not official
Now the Office of the President is increasingly acquiring the features of a separate branch of government, which influences public policy at various levels. At the same time, the Regulations on the OP do not define the obligation to publish the biographies of the members of the OP, the grounds for their appointment and the list of powers.
This uncertainty is very convenient, because it allows the management of the OP to explain the closedness of the Office by the formal absence of certain positions or responsibilities. Therefore, the official explanation for all questions about the status and powers of officials is simple: there are no such positions - and therefore no people in positions - provided.
This answer contradicts previously known data, so the Movement HONESTLY sent a repeated request to find out about each OP figure and position separately. This time we managed to obtain information.
Such radically opposite answers are surprising. To find out whether previously known freelance advisers actually lost positions, we asked about the status of each figure by name. In response to a repeated request, we were able to obtain confirmation that such people still work in the OP and occupy positions that were called “absent” in the previous response to the OP’s request.
That is, if the “missing” positions in the OP are given to new figures, it is unlikely that it will be possible to find out about this. If the situation with the openness of the work of the Office of the President does not improve, it will be possible to find out who has access to data and can influence the work of the OP only at the request of such figures.
It is noteworthy that the most active public activities on behalf of the Office of the President are carried out by freelance advisers, which means that even the nature of the interaction between these individuals and the OP is unclear. Such positions, in particular, are occupied by Mikhail Podolyak, Sergey Leshchenko and Daria Zarivnaya.
For example, Mikhail Podolyak actively comments on the new rules of mobilization and appears on air almost every day, where he is credited precisely as an adviser to the head of the President’s Office. On the official YouTube channel of the Office of the President, Sergei Leshchenko also conducts briefings as an adviser to the head of the OP.
The situation is similar with Daria Zarivna, who is often mentioned in publications on the website of the Office of the President and was present at some meetings with international partners and Ukrainian officials.
To learn more about the interaction of freelance advisers with OPs, we asked them for comments. Sergei Leshchenko, in a comment to the Movement, HONESTLY explained that he has been an adviser to the head of the Presidential Office since March 2022 and this activity is unpaid:
“A freelance adviser has no official responsibilities in the sense of public service. To put it simply, a freelance advisor, in my understanding, performs tasks and takes initiatives for the person who attracted him to such a role.
In addition to debunking Russian fakes, I was at the origins and am a member of the Ermak-McFaul International Expert Group project on sanctions. I am also a member of the Defense Partners project, which is aimed at targeted assistance to a specific brigade or other unit of the Defense Forces.”
But Daria Zarivnaya initially agreed to comment to the HONEST Movement on her activities in the President’s Office, but later she stopped responding. Mikhail Podolyak completely ignored calls and appeals.
“Optimization” of the Office of the President
The staff of the head of the OP Andrei Ermak has decreased significantly compared to the data that the Movement HONESTLY received in October last year. Now the list has become much shorter, because the answer indicates that the positions of adviser to the deputy head of the President’s Office and adviser to the President’s Office do not exist.
Indeed, the text of the Regulations on the Office of the President does not provide for such positions. In the official response of the OP to the request of the HONEST Movement, they literally quote the above-mentioned theses about the absence of positions, while avoiding answering the question about the status of the persons speaking on behalf of the OP.
And yet, in fact, such advisors exist and we were able to obtain a list of them in response to a repeated request. It turned out that some of the previously known persons have been “dismissed” from their positions.
Three of the OP's advisers have now been fired; all of them were previously freelance. What exactly “dismissal” means in the understanding of the Office of the President and why such changes occurred is not stated in the text of the response. Legislatively, release from work (position) is a temporary cessation of an employee’s performance of work duties while preserving his place of work, position and average earnings. Therefore, the question regarding the real status of these persons in the OP remains open.
Seven advisers to the deputy heads of the OP were also left without positions, or temporarily without them. Including Alexander Zhuzha, who was previously a naval attaché at the Ukrainian Embassy in Russia - he is also known for making a scandalous statement about Ukrainians.
In response to the request, ex-deputy mayor of Mariupol Alexander Kochurin, whom journalists associate with abuses in restoration tenders, is also named as dismissed. In his comments to the investigators, he was unable to explain how a company from Mariupol entered the construction market of the Kiev region and why so many direct (without competitions) contracts were concluded with it. At the same time, another person involved in this investigation, Elina Elyanova, is still in the position of adviser to Andrei Ermak.
Yuri Bogutsky was also included in the list of those fired. The only information in the public domain about a person with that name was information about the Minister of Culture and Tourism during the presidency of Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yushchenko, who died in 2019, and a former adviser to presidents Viktor Yanukovych and Petro Poroshenko. However, even in response to a repeated request, the OP only said that we were talking about another Bogutsky. No additional information was provided, noting that the adviser's biographical information contains personal data, which, in turn, can only be transferred with the consent of the subject of personal data.
The list of advisers to the head of the OP has also been reduced: six freelance advisers have been fired, and out of seven full-time advisers, only three remain. There are no publicly available explanations regarding such changes in staffing or the reasons for dismissal.
Among the freelance advisers who have now been dismissed from their positions, most are little known, but general information about them is publicly available. In particular, the list includes: Ruslan Magomedov, who holds the position of Chairman of the National Commission for Securities and the Stock Market; Adomas Auditskas, who was a member of the supervisory board of JSC Ukrzaliznytsia; Yulia Sinkevich, who was the general producer of the Odessa International Film Festival and co-founder of the Ukrainian Film Academy.
The list of Andrei Ermak’s full-time advisers has also been reduced by more than half. Alexander Kozenko, Andrey Gota, Vadim Golomazov and Ekaterina Chabanova were left without positions. There is very little information about these people in the public domain.
The list of Andrei Ermak’s deputies has also changed. Alexey Dneprov and Andrey Smirnov disappeared from it, their positions were taken by Irina Mudraya and Elena Kovalskaya. Andrei Sibiga, who was involved in foreign policy issues and the development of strategic partnerships, was also fired from the OP. However, simultaneously with his dismissal, he received the position of First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. In fact, a personnel exchange took place between the Office of the President and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, because instead of Sibiga, Nikolai Tochitsky received the position of deputy.
Despite all the personnel changes, Oleg Tatarov and Rostislav Shurma, whose dismissal the public has repeatedly demanded, still remain in their positions.
Changes in the President's team
The team of President Vladimir Zelensky so far has only three advisers, four adviser-plenipotentiaries, three representatives in state institutions and a press secretary.
Thus, since the previous publication, Sergei Trofimov, Oleg Ustenko and Mikhail Radutsky were dismissed from their positions as advisers. The OP explained their dismissal by “optimizing the staff of the President’s Office.”
Sergei Shefir, who from the beginning of Zelensky’s tenure held the position of his first assistant, was also fired. The society has not received any information about the reason for his dismissal and the results of his work over the years. This position is still vacant.
Two advisers-plenipotentiaries of the president were also fired: Natalya Pushkareva, who worked in the area of volunteer activities, and Alena Verbitskaya, who held the position of adviser-plenipotentiary for ensuring the rights of defenders of Ukraine. These positions are not mentioned in the new response from the Office of the President.
At the same time, the president appointed a new representative in the Verkhovna Rada to replace the dismissed Fedor Venislavsky. Now this position is occupied by another deputy from the Servant of the People, Galina Mikhailyuk.
Authority and Responsibility
Despite the personnel “optimization” in the Office of the President, there is no talk yet about the openness of its activities. The company did not receive any report on the results of work or an explanation for personnel changes. Also, it's quite strange that the OP provides radically different answers to queries that actually contradict each other.
We can assume that this is due to the lack of internal understanding of the status of figures who conduct active public activities on behalf of the Office of the President, but in fact do not have official status and staff relations.
The issue of liability remains open for persons who may have access to information and the formation of public policy, and also use affiliation with the OP for public statements.
For example, ex-adviser of the OP Alexey Arestovich still uses his previous status in his statements. After his dismissal from the OP, he began to actively criticize President Zelensky, in particular, he compared him to a dictator and wrote that “the harm that Zelensky and his team is causing to Ukraine has become greater than the benefit,” and there are calls for peace negotiations with Russia. As we see, the status of ex-adviser of the OP allows Arestovich to strengthen his theses and statements.
This state of affairs poses significant threats, because the powers of the central government body can be used in their own interests by persons for whom responsibility is not provided. But society does not even have the opportunity to find out who these people are and to identify abuses in time and stop them.
