The formal suspicion against Andriy Yermak, the former head of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, is more than another episode in a sprawling corruption investigation. It marks the point at which a scandal that had hovered near Bankova has moved directly into the president’s closest political circle.
The case centers on an alleged 460 million hryvnia scheme linked to luxury construction near Kyiv. Anti-corruption authorities did not initially identify the suspect by name, but the description — a former head of Ukraine’s presidential office — left little room for ambiguity. Ukrainian media named Yermak.
Legally, this is not a verdict and not a final position of the court. In Ukraine’s criminal procedure, a notice of suspicion is a decisive procedural step, but the presumption of innocence remains. Politically, however, the move has already changed the scale of the story.
According to Daycom’s earlier analysis, the danger for the government lies not only in the amount of money involved or in the prominence of the name. It lies in the fact that the case has reached a man who was not a technical official, but one of the key centers of power in wartime Ukraine.
Yermak led the Office of the President from 2020 to 2025. During that period, he became a central coordinator of political management, diplomatic negotiations, personnel decisions and communication with Western partners. Any criminal suspicion involving him is therefore read as something larger than a case against one former official.
His resignation in November 2025 had already reflected the pressure surrounding Operation Midas. Investigators searched his apartment then, but no formal suspicion was announced. The latest step creates a direct bridge between the political shock of that moment and a concrete procedural case.
Operation Midas began as an investigation into corruption in the energy sector. At its center stood Energoatom, the state nuclear power company that carries strategic weight during Russia’s war and repeated attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. The case described a system of kickbacks tied to state contracts.
The broader investigation has pointed to tens of millions of dollars passing through a shadow financial network. One line of the case concerns a Kyiv-based office where money was allegedly recorded, routed through nonresident companies and partly moved outside Ukraine.
The scandal is especially damaging because of the moment in which it unfolded. Ukraine is facing energy shortages, social fatigue and deep dependence on external support. Against that backdrop, any story involving luxury property near Kyiv becomes a political symbol of institutional weakness.
For Zelensky, the case creates a double risk. The first is domestic: society may see it as proof that the fight against corruption reached the highest floors of power too late. The second is external: Ukraine’s partners are watching not only the battlefield, but also the state’s ability to manage public money cleanly.
The president has tried to distance himself from those implicated in Operation Midas and has publicly backed punishment for anyone involved in corruption. But distance works only when it is supported by decisions, not rhetoric. A suspicion involving a former closest aide sharply narrows the room for political maneuver.
The case has already touched figures with significant status: former ministers, energy-sector managers and businessmen from circles long associated with power. That concentration of names has turned Midas from a criminal investigation into a test of Ukraine’s political system.
Bankova’s most vulnerable point is not merely the existence of corruption. It is the suspicion that the system was too slow, or too unwilling, to see it. Ukraine has anti-corruption institutions capable of moving against influential people. Each such case now tests whether political power will allow them to reach the end.
The independence of NABU and SAPO is therefore central. In recent years, both institutions have faced political tension, including attempts to limit their autonomy. Now any pressure on the investigation would look less like administrative reform than self-protection by the authorities.
For Yermak, the legal process is only beginning. He has the right to defense, and guilt can be established only by a court. But the political consequences have already arrived: the former architect of the presidential vertical is no longer a shadow near the scandal. He has become one of its central figures.
This does not mean an automatic collapse of power. Ukraine’s wartime political system remains concentrated, and society has no interest in chaos. Precisely for that reason, the response must be institutional rather than decorative: a transparent investigation, a real court process and no selective justice.
Otherwise, Midas will cease to be only the name of an operation. It will become a metaphor for a government at risk of turning everything it touches into political burden. For a country fighting a war, rebuilding its energy system and defending its European future, that is too high a price for the old habits of Ukrainian politics.
