As the April 21 runoff election approaches, the winner of the first round, comedic actor Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is coming under growing pressure to announce his candidates for five top public positions in his potential administration: the prosecutor general, the national bank chairman, the security service chief, and the ministers of finance and foreign affairs.
Zelenskiy’s team has promised to reveal their names on April 19, the day of the planned debate with President Petro Poroshenko.
From the beginning, one of the Zelenskiy campaign’s major weaknesses has been the absence of a clear team. Over time, however, the number of supporters in his camp has grown.
The Kyiv Post examined Zelenskiy’s inner circle: advisers, campaign managers, spokespeople, and business partners. Some of these people act as mouthpieces, speaking to the media on Zelenskiy’s behalf and communicating his agenda to the public. Others stay behind the scenes, directing the campaign and shaping his visual presence on social media and television.
Ambassadors, advisers
People in this group joined Zelenskiy’s campaign relatively recently, saying they support his views on how to change Ukraine for the better. They don’t have strictly defined roles in the team and broadly call themselves advisers. They also act as de facto ambassadors who officially represent Zelenskiy on television, at public events, and during interviews with the media. They say they have not been promised positions in a future Zelenskiy administration.
Dmytro Razumkov
Managing director of the Ukrainian Politconsulting Group
Razumkov, 35, started his political career as the leader of the youth branch of the Party of Regions. In 2013–2014, he worked with the then governor of Kirovohrad Oblast, Andriy Nikolayenko, who now heads the Osnova political party. During the 2014 presidential election, he was an authorized representative of candidate Sergiy Tigipko, a prominent banker and politician, at the Central Election Commission.
Razumkov says that he was introduced to Zelenskiy last October through friends. He contributed Hr 98,000 to Zelenskiy’s election fund.
Ruslan Stefanchuk
Professor of law, associate member of the National Academy of Legal Sciences
Stefanchuk, 43, is a distinguished Ukrainian scholar specializing in non-property rights, intellectual property laws, and civil rights. He is often called the ideologist of Zelenskiy’s campaign and one of the authors of Zelenskiy’s election program, which included ideas crowdsourced from social media users. He also manages Zelenskiy’s meetings with experts.
He says he has known Zelenskiy for a good two decades: They met while performing KVN, a student comedy competition popular in Russian-speaking countries. But in the early 2000s their paths separated. Zelenskiy approached him last March.
Oleksandr Danylyuk
Former Finance Minister of Ukraine
Danylyuk, 43, was one of the Ukrainian managers with Western education and experience who worked as an economic adviser to former Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov, an adviser to former president Viktor Yanukovych, and deputy head of President Petro Poroshenko’s administration. In April 2016, he became the Finance Minister but was fired from the government two years later after a conflict with Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman over reforming the state fiscal service. He accused Groysman of sabotaging the reform and covering up corruption.
He and former National Bank chairwoman Valeria Gontareva steered the nationalization of PrivatBank from oligarchs Ihor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Boholyubov in 2016.
“There is no legal way to return PrivatBank to its former owners,” he said, addressing one of the primary concerns over Zelenskiy’s potential election: his links to Kolomoisky.
Aivaras Abromavicius
Former Minister of Economy and Trade
Lithuanian investment banker Abromavicius, 43, was one of several foreign reformers who were granted Ukrainian citizenship in order to serve as ministers in Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s cabinet after the 2014 EuroMaidan Revolution that ended President Viktor Yanukovych’s rule. He resigned in 2016 citing pressure from the presidential administration and the president’s ally, Ihor Kononenko, as well as the sabotage of reforms and corruption on the top levels of power.
He says he met Zelenskiy two months ago.
Ruslan Ryaboshapka
Former member of the National Agency for Corruption Prevention
Ryaboshapka, 42, served as a deputy to the Justice Minister focusing on the fight against corruption before his appointment to the National Agency for Corruption Prevention. He resigned from the agency in 2017 citing systemic issues in its work and officials’ indifference to fixing them.
It is no surprise that relaunching Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies is one of the key points in Zelenskiy’s program.
Ryaboshapka contributed Hr 53,625 ($2,000) to Zelenskiy’s election fund.
Sergii Leshchenko
Lawmaker who left the Petro Poroshenko Bloc
Before joining the Ukrainian parliament in 2014, Leshchenko, 38, had a successful journalism career exposing political corruption for Ukrainska Pravda, a leading independent media outlet. As a lawmaker, he continued to uncover corruption schemes, leak information, and criticize the authorities. He exited the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction in late February after journalists revealed a corruption scheme in the defense sector involving the son of the president’s top ally.
Svyatoslav Yurash
Activist
Yurash, 23, is a recent addition to Ze Team. A co-founder of the #Babylon’13 art community, he gained prominence for his activism during the 2014 EuroMaidan Revolution and was awarded a medal by President Poroshenko. His father, Andriy Yurash, is the director of the Department for Religion and Nationality Affairs at the Ministry of Culture.
Experts
This group advises Zelenskiy’s campaign on a variety of topics: e-governance, constitutional rights, transport and infrastructure, education, taxation, information policy, environmental issues, and regional development.
Iryna Venediktova
Professor of law at Kharkiv National University; vice president of the Bioethics and Medical Law Foundation
Oleksandr Merezhko
Head of the law department at the Kyiv National Linguistics University
Danylo Hetmantsev
Honorary president of the Jurimex law firm; President of the Association of tax advisers
Oleg Bondarenko
Lawyer, leader of the public organization Green Fund, which protects the rights of citizens in environmental disputes
Serhiy Babak
Director of educational programs at the Ukrainian Institute of Future
Oleksandr Kharebin
Former first deputy head of the National Television and Radio Broadcaster
Kharebin’s past experience includes managing the Media Invest Group of Serhiy Taruta, a former oligarch who became a politician, and Ukrainian Media Holding after it was acquired by Serhiy Kurchenko, an oligarch who fled Ukraine after the 2014 EuroMaidan Revolution.
Volodymyr Shulmeister
Director of the infrastructure program at the Ukrainian Institute of Future
Shulmeister was a top manager of Foxtrot, one of Ukraine’s largest electronics retailers. In 2014–2015, he served as the first deputy to then Infrastructure Minister Andriy Pyvovarsky. Both resigned. Shulmeister explained this decision as a response to slow progress in reforms, a lack of cooperation among all branches of power, and low salaries in the public sector.
Ruslan Rokhov
Founder of the School of Mayors, which teaches how to manage towns and cities effectively
In 2015, Rokhov ran to become mayor of his native city of Khmelnytskyi, but didn’t succeed. Most recently, he was an aide to Mykolayiv Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych.
In 2014, he was expelled from the Syla Lyudei party for his behavior during political negotiations, according to an official statement. In 2018, Rokhov participated in Candidate, a reality show on the 112 television channel where contestants competed for the main prize of joining Za Zhittya, Russia-friendly party, in the next parliamentary election.
Campaign managers
Zelenskiy’s campaign office is located in a neat three-storey building in the Pechersk District of Kyiv. Razumkov said that no foreign consultants or strategists have been hired.
Ivan Bakanov
Director of Kvartal 95, head of the Servant of the People political party
Until two months ago, Bakanov was a low-profile person who didn’t give interviews. Today, he is in charge of the presidential campaign of his childhood friend from Krivyi Rih. He calls Zelenskiy a great leader able to build teams and bring together the right people. “Most opponents’ attitude toward Zelenskiy is ‘I don’t know him but I don’t like him,'” he said in a February interview with the Kyiv Post.
Bakanov also remains vague about the Servant of the People party’s plans for the parliamentary election in the fall.
Among other Kvartal 95 staffers involved in the campaign are Yuriy Kostyuk, screenwriter of Servant of the People television series, Mykhailo Valeyev, creative producer of Kvartal 95, and Iryna Pobedonostseva, director for development of Kvartal 95 Studio responsible for media strategy in Zelenskiy’s campaign.
Mikhail Fyodorov
Founder of SMM Studio, head of digital strategy
Fyodorov is in charge of the core segment of Zelenskiy’s campaign: social media. It is his first political project, he said. In the past, his company provided social media management services and used to work with Kvartal 95.
He contributed Hr 1.5 million ($56,000) to the campaign.
Oleksandr Korniyenko
Coordinator of Ze Team offices and the volunteer community
Korniyenko is a founder of the Union of Initiative Youth, a youth organization that offers personal and professional development trainings to young people. He is joined by Kateryna Kovalenko, a human resources manager with past experience in the AXA insurance company, PUMB bank, and Microsoft Ukraine.
Vadym Halaichuk
Founder of the Hillmont Partners law firm
Halaichuk was formerly known as the lawyer of ex-Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko. In 2004, his law firm Moor & Krosondovych won a landmark case against the Central Election Commission to declare the vote results invalid and hold a re-run election.
As a chief lawyer in Zelenskiy’s campaign, Halaichuk works on the prevention of electoral fraud. He and another partner of Hillmont Partners, Serhiy Kalchenko, are Zelenskiy’s authorized representative at the Central Election Commission.
Other authorized representatives at the Central Election Commission: Alina Zagoruiko, a former aide to lawmaker Viktor Shvets (Batkivshchyna) and his daughter Yulia Shvets, who is a member of the Central Election Commission; and Serhiy Ionushas, lawyer at the Gelon law firm and the patent and intellectual property attorney for Zelenskiy and Kvartal 95.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko
CEO of Good Media company
Tymoshenko’s video production company is known for producing political ads and PR films for a wide range of politicians — namely, the UKROP political party, Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov, Socialist Party leader Illya Kyva, Volodymyr Gorysman’s Cabinet, and President Poroshenko. Most recently, Tymoshenko produced a film about Poroshenko’s ally, 5 days with Ihor Kononenko, that aired on the Pryamyi TV channel in January.
Tymoshenko was a general producer of the documentary series The Battle for Dnipro, which showed how Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, governed by oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky in 2014, fought against separatism. Good Media also produced a number of social ads in support of the Ukrainian army. It won a prestigious award for one of these ads.
Tymoshenko was the media chief and press service head of the UKROP party in 2015-2017 and ran for the Kyiv city council with UKROP in 2015.
On Zelenskiy’s team, he is responsible for video content and video blogs.
Andriy Bohdan
Lawyer
Bohdan is the most controversial figure in Zelenskiy’s campaign.
In the mid‑2000s, as a partner of the Pukshin and Partners law firm, he represented then Ukrainian president Yushchenko in court. He also worked in the legal department of Yushchenko’s 2004 presidential campaign.
Later, as a deputy to then-Justice Minister Mykola Onishchuk, he implemented anti-corruption legal policies. In 2013, he was appointed a government envoy for anti-corruption policy. In 2014, he became an adviser to Kolomoisky, then governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.
In 2015, Bohdan ran for parliament on the Petro Poroshenko Bloc list. At the same time, he was also one of the attorneys for Gennadiy Korban, then the leader of the UKROP party and governor Kolomoisky’s former deputy, when Korban was arrested in 2015 on charges of organizing a criminal group. After relations between Kolomoisky and President Poroshenko went sour, Bohdan was excluded from the Poroshenko Bloc list.
Journalists from the Nashi Groshi investigative project found that, in 2018, Bohdan made 20 trips to Geneva, where Kolomoisky resided. And in December, Bohdan and the Kvartal 95 studio traveled to Tel Aviv, where Kolomoisky relocated from Switzerland.
Nashi Groshi also found that, on April 3, Bohdan was a representative of Zelenskiy’s campaign office in a meeting with the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, which is investigating Kolomoisky’s businesses.
Business partners
Borys and Serhiy Shefir
Co-founders and producers of Kvartal 95
Like Zelenskiy, the Shefir brothers are from Krivyi Rih. The three men met in the late 1990s, when they performed on the same team, called Kvartal 95, in KVN, a student comedy competition headquartered in Moscow. They moved to Kyiv in 2003 and established a production studio, Kvartal 95, that has grown into an entertainment business empire. Today, Zelenskiy and the Shefir brothers co-own 10 companies and some property.
The Shefir brothers contributed a total of Hr 5 million (around $186,400) to Zelenskiy election fund.
Besides Borys and Serhiy Shefir, Zelenskiy’s other main business partners are his wife Olena Zelenska, Kvartal 95 film producer Andriy Yakovlev, and 1+1 television channel general producer Oleksandr Tkachenko.
In January, journalists from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Schemes investigative project found that Zelenskiy co-owned three filmmaking companies in Russia, despite previous claims that he had given up his business in Russia after it launched a war against Ukraine is 2014. In March, Zelenskiy reportedly transferred ownership of Cyprus-registered firm Green Family, which controls the Russian firms, to his business partner Yakovlev.
Now Green Family belongs to the Shefirs, Yakovlev, and a firm called Appex International LTD that belongs to Timur Mindich. Mindich is a low-profile businessman, whom Ukrainian media call an unofficial curator of the 1+1 television channel and an ally of Kolomoisky. Mindich and Kolomoisky are members of the fiduciary board of the Dnipro Jewish community.
Journalists from Nashi Groshi revealed that Zelenskiy uses a Mercedez-Benz S600 with a license plate registered under Mindich’s name.
