“I think that the resignation of Mr. Jermak in this case would dampen the uproar around the government, because it is no secret that the government was formed mainly after the approval of certain candidates in the presidential office. Whether it was the president’s decision or it was some kind of joint decision, I cannot say, but among the servants (a slang term for the deputies of the Servant of the People party, ed.) there was a lot of talk today that Mr. Jermak should leave,” he commented on Tuesday Venislavskyj for .
The minister was asked about Mindič already in January
Voices criticizing Andrij Jermak also appear in the opposition. The most prominent of them today belongs to deputy Jaroslav Železňak from the Holos party. In one, where he discusses the case that is currently shaking Ukraine, he mentions the session of the parliament on January 17 of this year, during which he asked the then Minister of Energy Herman Halushchenko about Timur Mindič, the businessman and friend of Volodymyr Zelensky.
Today, Mindič appears as a suspect in the Midas case – he was supposed to be part of an organized group that, according to investigators, tunneled the state nuclear company Enerhoatom.
Already in January, MP Železňak was interested in whether Halushchenko knew Mindič personally and what role the businessman in question plays in the management of the Ukrainian energy industry. “Mr. Mindič plays no role there. The Minister of Energy has a role in the management of the energy industry, and that’s me,” replied Halushchenko, who resigned after the scandal broke.
According to Železňak, there should have been an uproar in the president’s office after his questions. “And this uproar was caused by the head of the president’s office himself. So whether Andrij Jermak knew about what was happening is, in my opinion, a rhetorical question,” says the deputy.
“Ali Baba” and the attack on the investigators
According to Železňak, Jermak’s name also appeared in the recordings with which the investigators operate. Železňak refers to the words of Oleksandr Klymenko, the head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, according to which the operatives heard how a certain “Ali Baba” holds meetings where he assigns tasks to the security forces in order to put pressure on the investigators of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the prosecutors of the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office.
We will remind you that in Ukraine during the summer civil protests were sparked by a draft law that limited the independence of investigators and prosecutors specializing in grand corruption. Even then, there were suspicions that politicians were trying to bring both anti-corruption institutions under control, as they focused on investigating people from the highest levels of Ukrainian politics, including people close to the president himself. Finally, after pressure, the President took a step back and submitted a law that restored the original status of both investigative offices.
We would also like to add that NABU detective Ruslan Mahamedrasulov, who was collecting evidence in the Enerhoatom tunneling case, has been in pretrial detention since the summer. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) accused him of wanting to sell technical hemp seeds to Russia, specifically Dagestan, together with his father. The recording that the SBU published was supposed to prove it.
But anti-corruption activists say that on the recording you can actually hear Uzbekistan, not Dagestan.
And now back to the nickname “Ali Baba”. According to MP Železňak, it belongs to Andrij Jermak, who is said to be nicknamed “Alla Borisovna” in the backroom (after the famous Russian singer, editor’s note). Jermak’s father’s name is also Borysovyč, so his initials are AB Jermak. The fact that Jermak in the backroom is nicknamed AB, respectively Alla Borisovna, and the MP from the Servant of the People party, Mariana Bezuhlová.
Jermak is said to see Kolomojský behind the problems
Jermak’s reaction to what is heard in his address is not yet known. The media remind that he and Zelensky are on a business trip beyond the borders of Ukraine. Some commentators say that the fact that the president is with the chief of staff may indicate that he is still counting on him.
Citing its sources in the government and the president’s office, the newspaper also writes that Andriy Jermak is convincing Zelenskyi that the oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky is to blame for the problems that befell the country’s leadership last week.
He has been in pre-trial detention for the third year on suspicion of fraud and money laundering.
Ukrainian Pravda recalls that a similar tactic – to claim that it was an enemy attack – was once used by Yermak’s deputy Rostyslav Šurma, when he was accused of the possible theft of 300 million hryvnias (approximately 6 million euros), which the state paid to his brother’s company in Russian-occupied territory. At the time, Šurma claimed that it was Kolomoi’s revenge.
According to the people with whom journalists from Ukrainska Pravda talked, the country’s leadership is most worried today that the head of the presidential office could escape the accusation. “Inside the system, everyone knows who was the mastermind of the July crackdown on NABU,” a person from Zelensky’s team told them, adding that if NABU had not been hacked, then “Midas (name of the case, ed.) would surface in a year, not now and not in this form.”
Strange deals with bulletproof vests
The name of the ex-Minister of Defense, now Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov, is appearing more and more in the Ukrainian media. According to SAP representatives, the aforementioned Mindič could have had an influence not only on the ex-Minister of Energy Herman Haluščenko, . They did not provide more details – at least not yet.
According to journalist Tetiana Nikolajenko, Mindič allegedly pressured Umerov to buy Israeli bulletproof vests.
In this case, it was a tender from last year’s winter for 75,000 vests in the total amount of 1.6 billion hryvnias (approximately 33 million euros), which was won by the previously unknown company Pevnosť obrany (translated from Ukrainian Fortecja zachystu), which offered the lowest price. According to Nikolajenko, the fact that the state did not sign a contract with her was a matter of chance – it turned out that the company did not have a license to sell.
“Ukrainian manufacturers had such licenses. Instead of supporting Ukrainian manufacturers, the DOT (the state agency that provides the rear needs of the Ukrainian army, note editor) canceled the offer – because it did not choose the interests of the Ukrainian manufacturer, but specifically Mindič,” Nikolayenko on the social network.
According to her, the agency announced a new tender a month later. This time for 200 million hryvnias (4 million euros). The procurement was won by another, also unknown company, which, according to the journalist, offered the same bulletproof vest model that was previously offered by the Defense Fortress. What happened next? According to the journalist, the company in question was unable to handle the first deliveries, so it was not Israeli bulletproof vests that allegedly arrived in Ukraine, but – according to Nikolayenko – Chinese “scumbags” that could be shot through and were stitched crookedly.
Umerov is also over the border, he met with Trump’s envoy
The journalist drew attention to the strange business at the beginning of the year. According to her words, she pointed out the controversial contract during every meeting with the agency, but the agency allegedly “kept on it”. “Now it is clear why. The former defense minister did not dare to ignore Mindič,” Nikolajenko wrote.
Umerov himself denies that anyone influences him. However, he admitted that he had met Mindič.
“As a minister, I regularly met with manufacturers and suppliers of equipment and weapons, lobbyists and the like. A meeting was held with Timur Mindič, where the question of bulletproof vests was raised within the contract. As a result, the contract was terminated because the product did not meet the requirements, no product was delivered. Check any media statements, I am always ready to provide relevant information and explanations to media representatives,” Umerov.
He has been outside the territory of Ukraine since November 11.
According to Ukrainska pravda, Umerov went on a sudden business trip to Turkey. He himself claimed that he was in Istanbul to “unblock the process of exchanging prisoners of war.” In this context, the newspaper wrote that the coordination staff, which deals with exchanges, learned about Umerov’s trip only from the media.
We will add that Rustem Umerov, who is currently in the USA, reportedly met with Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff in Miami to discuss with him the American plan to end the war in Ukraine, which the Americans are secretly preparing with the Russians.
Political crisis
Ukraine is currently mired in a political crisis, the latest of which is that the Ukrainian parliament will most likely not vote this week on one of the key documents of the year – the 2026 budget.
Moreover, all this is taking place at a time when the Russian army is trying to break through Ukrainian defenses in the southeast of the country, Ukrainians only have electricity for a few hours a day, and their cities are facing Russian missile and drone attacks.
However, according to Valerij Pekar, a teacher at the Kyiv-Mohyla Business School, on the Pecherské hills (the place where the presidential office, government office and parliament are located, editor’s note) they are “trying with all their might to pretend” that there is no political crisis.
According to him, this is the biggest political crisis since February 2014 – that is, from the moment when the corrupt regime of Viktor Yanukovych decided to suppress citizens’ anger with violence, President Yanukovych fled the country to Russia, and Russia began to occupy Crimea.
“We succeeded then. Will we succeed now?” on a social network.
