Andrey Yermak, the longstanding head of Zelensky’s administration in Kiev (officially known as the Presidential Office) has fallen.

After being subjected to a long-overdue – and probably not very surprising – search of his premises by the special anti-corruption agencies NABU (think of it as Ukraine’s graft police) and SAPO (that would be the graft prosecutor), Yermak has lost his job.

As sometimes happens on such occasions, he may also have gotten quite drunk. At least that’s how a social media post by him read, where he mightily pitied himself and announced his departure for “the front.” They’ll be so relieved in the cold, wet dug-outs of collapsing Pokrovsk to hear that a pasty desk jockey in habitually crumpled fatigues is coming to their rescue. Not.

While he has not (yet) been officially charged, no one in Ukraine doubts that the trigger for Yermak’s come-uppance is a whole tangle of currently exploding corruption scandals that are so wild they are shaking even Ukrainian politics, as Moscow has noted correctly: There is the Energoatom con (or, as they say in Ukraine, “Mindichgate” – after another very, very close friend of Zelensky, Timur Mindich), where Yermak features as “Ali Baba” in the pertinent wiretaps. Linked to Mindichgate is the “Dynasty” elite real estate (really, palaces) and money laundering scheme. Make no mistake, all of this is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg.........

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