Two investigative journalism shows have published video footage implicating President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak and his brother Denys in alleged corrupt dealings.
On April 1, the Bihus.info investigative journalism show published video footage in which Denys Yermak appears to discuss cracking down on the business of a Danish firm in exchange for money. On April 2, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Schemes show released an investigation suggesting that Andriy Yermak works closely with an ally of billionaire oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky.
Links between Kolomoisky and Zelensky’s previous chief of staff, Andriy Bohdan, were fact. Bohdan had previously been the oligarch’s lawyer. But the relationship between Andriy Yermak and Kolomoisky has remained less clear until now.
The investigations followed another scandal implicating Denys Yermak in corruption. On March 29, Geo Leros, a lawmaker from Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, also published videos that appeared to show the chief of staff’s brother and his aide considering candidates for government jobs and discussing receiving money from some of them.
The Yermak brothers did not deny the authenticity of the videos, but Denys Yermak claimed they were taken out of context. Andriy Yermak also dismissed the accusations and lashed out at Leros, promising to sue him.
Kolomoisky link
In its investigation, Schemes filmed Timur Mindich, a friend and business partner of Kolomoisky, visiting the President’s Office on March 20, March 23 and March 27.
The timing of the visits coincided with the Verkhovna Rada considering the so-called “anti-Kolomoisky law.” That law would ban the return of nationalized banks to their previous owners. Most prominently, that would include Ukraine’s largest bank, PrivatBank, which was previously controlled by Kolomoisky and nationalized in 2016.
On March 30, the parliament passed the bill in its first reading.
Mindich and Andriy Yermak confirmed meeting each other and being friends. Mindich first said he was visiting the chief of staff in a private matter, but then said he was coming “to help fight the coronavirus.” He denied having discussed anything related to Kolomoisky with Yermak.
“It’s ridiculous,” he said. “How could I have talked to Yermak on issues related to Ihor Valeryevych (Kolomoisky)?”
Schemes also filmed Yermak and ex-President Leonid Kuchma arriving in Kyiv’s Zhulyany Airport on a private jet that belongs to another oligarch and Kuchma’s son-in-law, Viktor Pinchuk, on March 11. They came from Minsk, where negotiations with Russia had been held.
Yermak claimed he was not aware of who owned the plane and who paid for it.
Klitschko connection
Schemes also filmed Mykola Tyshchenko, a lawmaker from Servant of the People, regularly visiting the President’s Office in recent months. On Jan. 28, the cars of Tyshchenko and Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitschko were present at the President’s Office simultaneously.
Yuriy Levchenko, an ex-lawmaker from the nationalist Svoboda party, claimed that Tyshchenko had de facto become a liaison between the President’s Office and Klitschko and was able to influence decision making in the capital.
Schemes reported that Andriy Trambovetsky, a former classmate of Tyshchenko, had become head of Kyiv’s Svyatoshyn district, while Oleksiy Kuleba, allegedly an ally of Yermak, had become head of city hall’s land improvements unit. Trambovetsky did not respond to a request for comment.
Klitschko said he did not remember who recommended Trambovetsky but confirmed that Kuleba’s candidacy had been proposed by Andriy Yermak.
Both Kuleba and Klitschko denied speculation that Yermak influences decision making at the Kyiv City State Administration through his proteges.
Klitschko has held both the elected position of mayor and a presidential appointment as the head of the Kyiv City State Administration since 2014. Last year, Zelensky’s administration considered firing him from the latter job, with then-Chief of Staff Andriy Bohdan publicly pressing for it. However, Klitschko stayed — and many experts and observers concluded that he kept the job due to his good relations with Yermak.
Selling state jobs
Meanwhile, Bihus.info published videos in which brother Denys Yermak, his aide Serhii Shumsky and other people discuss selling government jobs. However, in most cases, the candidates did not get the jobs.
“I’m taking three (an apparent reference to $3 million), Denys gets five (apparently $5 million),” Shumsky said in one of the recordings.
The videos come from the same batch that was first published on March 30 by MP Leros and by an anonymous Telegram channel. Leros said that he got the tapes from a source he wouldn’t name, and passed it to two journalism teams, Bihus.Info and Schemes, as well as published some himself.
Among other things, they discuss selling the job of state nuclear monopoly Energoatom’s CEO to former lawmaker Volodymyr Kupchak, according to footage published by Bihus.info.
“There are different tasks: for example, building a corruption system,” Kupchak says in the video. “I can do that based on my field of activities.”
Kupchak ultimately did not get the job. He could not be reached for comment.
Crackdown on Danish firm
In videos leaked to Bihus.info, Denys Yermak also discusses cracking down on the business of Danish logistics company MAERSK and Ukrainian logistics firm TIS, which is owned by businessman Andriy Stavnitser and his brother Yegor Grebennikov.
“TIS, MAERSK and the Stavnitser brothers will give birth to a monster that will deal a blow to everyone,” Yermak says. “We don’t need a monopoly here. We’ve got to kick them out in every way – lawfully.”
He also says that he needs to do this to promote the interests of KTL Ukraine, a local subsidiary of Turkish logistics company Kinay.
“There is an interest that is being expressed by a Turkish company,” Yermak says. “They’re very interested in slaying this monster that’s being born… The faster we start taking action, the faster we’ll get very good financial support.”
“The Turks are ready to pay us $300,000 or 300,000 euros every month,” an interlocutor of Yermak said, according to the videos.
Denys Yermak did not respond to requests for comment.
KTL Ukraine told the Kyiv Post it is researching the videos to find out where the accusations come from.
“In all the videos, the only one who mentions KTL Ukraine and accuses KTL is Nashi Hroshi’s anchor (Denys Bihus),” KTL Ukraine added.
In the videos published by Bihus.info, Yermak refers to a “Turkish company” but does not say directly it is KTL Ukraine, which is mentioned by Bihus himself.
Meanwhile, Stavnitser said on Facebook that one of the people who have allegedly contacted Yermak is Andrey Kuzmin, commercial director of KTL Ukraine, and another one is Igor Khokhlov. Kuzmin declined to comment on whether he has talked to Yermak, while Khokhlov did not respond to requests for comment.
“What they call a ‘monster’ is a business that my father and I started 25 years ago in a tent near a swamp, and today this business pays billions (of hryvnias) in taxes,” Stavnitser wrote on Facebook. “If prosecutors fail to respond whether this was a fair competition, I’ll tell everything myself.”
