Andriy Yermak, the man who until just over 24 hours ago was Zelensky's right hand man and the president's top most powerful aid as chief of staff, and Ukraine's appointed chief negotiator with the US on the peace process, is going to the front lines, apparently to "fight".

After his home and offices were raided by Ukraine's anti-corruption investigators Friday related to the ongoing massive energy sector kickback scandal, Yermak announced by text message to The New York Post, "I’m going to the front and am prepared for any reprisals." He followed with, "I am an honest and decent person."

The Post added further, "He then apologized if he no longer answers calls. He did not say when or how he intended to go to the frontlines of the war against Russia."

He appears to still be rejecting allegations he was involved in the graft probe, centered on at least $100 million being siphoned off by corrupt Ukrainian officials amid a series of payoffs and kickbacks.

The narrative in his defense is being spun by the same NY Post report, which suggests this is all merely 'political' due largely to jealously and growing rivalries related to the enormous decision-making influence Yermak was coming to wield:

Despite his towering frame, you might not always have spotted him. Yet, wherever President Volodymyr Zelensky was, Yermak was often not far away.

As his chief of staff, Yermak wielded enormous power at the top of government and was even trusted to negotiate on Ukraine's behalf at peace talks with the US.

But as his influence grew, so did public resentment of the power this unelected official held. His political career came to an abrupt end on Friday, hours after anti-corruption investigators raided his home in Kyiv.

But clearly his dramatic declaration of "going to the front lines" is meant to signal a sense of self-sacrificial patriotism and induce feelings of sympathy. 

Oleksandr Dubinskyi, a rare and controversial oppositional lawmaker in Ukraine's parliament who has long called for Zelensky's impeachment, has a very different take based on his sources. He detailed in an X post a series of specific claims, the chief of which is that Yermak is 'hiding' from anti-corruption investigators:

I have learned where exactly he is going to “serve.”

Fact: Yermak, with his security detail, was brought to the location of commander nicknamed Madjar - one of the most media-prominent Ukrainian fighters, known for harsh Telegram rhetoric and the “Drone Wall” project. Unit commanders refuse to assign Yermak to their ranks.

He is physically present but has no tasks, no role, and no assigned position. Yermak is hiding from NABU anti-corruption investigations in a zone where detectives cannot serve him a notice of suspicion or court summons.

Separate detail: Madjar accepted Yermak only after a personal request from Zelensky. For Yermak, the front is not service. The front is a hideout. And it is interesting how people will meet Yermak - the man who organized the forced rounding-up of people in the streets of Ukraine.

Interestingly, when the teams of NABU and SAP agents searched his office on Friday, this was just meters away from President Zelensky's own office.

As a reminder, Andrew Korybko recently opined that Yermak's removal could prompt some progress in peace talks:

He’s Zelensky’s powerbroker so his downfall could undo the already shaky alliance between the armed forces, the oligarchs, the secret police, and parliament that keeps Zelensky in power, thus pressuring him into peace, especially if his warmongering grey cardinal is no longer pushing him to keep fighting.

One geopolitical source, known on X as The Islander, agrees: this is largely the result of the Trump administration finally bringing real pressure to bear on the Zelensky regime at a moment a clear, workable peace plan is on the table - which much to Kiev's chagrin features territorial concessions in the Donbass and Crimea.

According to the lengthy analysis [emphasis ZH]:

The fall of Andriy Yermak – Zelensky’s fixer, enforcer, gatekeeper, and indispensable ally, isn’t a “corruption scandal.” It’s Washington slapping the table. NABU, the U.S.-trained attack dog of Ukrainian politics, didn’t raid the Presidential Office by accident.

It raided to remind Zelensky that the war isn’t his to command, the peace process isn’t his to veto, and the leash around Bankova Street is held in Washington, not Kiev and certainly not European chihuahuas. Because the real story isn’t Yermak’s resignation. The real story is the West turning on itself over how to end a war Russia has already won.

The fall of Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s most loyal ally and the de facto power manager of Ukraine, is not a scandal. It is a strike from above. NABU, the U.S.-funded, U.S.-trained anti-corruption bureau, didn’t raid the home and office of Ukraine’s most powerful unelected official by coincidence. And in any other country, his resignation after a corruption raid would be a political scandal. In Ukraine, it’s a geopolitical detonation.

Yermak wasn’t just a chief of staff, he was the shadow architect of the regime, the man through whom every appointment, every oligarchic negotiation, every Western request, and every wartime decision had to pass. And the speed of his resignation makes clear this was less about corruption, and more about pressure — engineered, timed, and executed by the one actor that can pull such a lever, Washington.

For months, the U.S. has been split between the neocons clinging to fantasies of a battlefield reversal, and the rising bloc of realists (JD Vance et. al) who have finally accepted what the frontlines have shown for over a year, Russia has already won. Ukraine’s army is shattered, NATO’s ammunition reserves are exhausted, and American voters are done with a war that offers no victory and no strategy.

The realists now want a controlled, face-saving diplomatic exit, that locks in territorial losses quietly while Washington claims it “secured peace.” Zelensky has resisted every inch of this pivot because peace ends his power. And Yermak was the immovable pillar of that resistance, insulating Zelensky from any pressure to negotiate, the filter preventing unwanted messages from reaching the president. By purging him through a NABU raid, the U.S. has isolated Zelensky.

Meanwhile, the EU is panicking. European leaders fear peace more than war because peace forces accountability... why did they destroy their own industries, torch their energy security, plunge their economies into recession, and funnel hundreds of billions into corruption for a war Washington itself is now preparing to fold?

Brussels supported Zelensky unconditionally not out of conviction but out of sheer self-preservation. If the war ends, they must answer for the ruin they inflicted on their own populations. Europe needs perpetual conflict to postpone the political reckoning. Washington, by contrast, wants a face saving offramp. This is the real EU–US divide: Brussels wants to delay the inevitable, Washington wants to manage it, and Kiev wants to deny it. Only one of them has the power to dictate the timeline, and it isn’t Europe.

Moscow sees the Western fracture, senses the desperation, and understands its advantage. Putin’s message has been cold and consistent: either negotiations occur on terms that reflect the battlefield reality and addreses the root cause of the conflict, or Russia will continue grinding down NATO’s proxy forces until nothing remains to negotiate with.

For Russia, both paths lead to victory. Russia has no reason to rush, it is the West running out of time, weapons, unity, and credibility. And when European publics finally realize their leaders sacrificed prosperity, stability, industry, and geopolitical autonomy for a war that ended exactly where Moscow predicted it would, the political reckoning will be seismic. Yermak’s fall is not the end of an era, it marks the beginning of the collapse for the EU.

Already, President Zelensky has on Saturday announced a delegation headed by security council secretary Rustem Umerov was on its way to Washington continue talks on the Trump-proposed deal to end the war.

Umerov has been put in charge of the Ukrainian delegation at a moment Yermak is on the run toward the front lines. This is all happening very fast, and the White House can now more easily impose its will on an increasingly disunified and somewhat panicked Zelensky government.