The fall of Andriy Yermak – Zelensky’s fixer, enforcer, gatekeeper, and indispensable ally
by The Islander [11-28-2025].
Andriy Yermak says he’s “disgusted” by the lack of support after the NABU raid. He shouldn’t be. Anyone who understands how empires operate knows exactly what just happened, the moment you stop being strategically useful, you are not protected — you are erased. And in the eyes of Ukraine’s patrons, Yermak’s usefulness expired the second he became an obstacle to the settlement being shaped behind closed doors.
The choreography of his fall tells the story. NABU, Washington’s precision instrument moonlighting as an anti-corruption agency — doesn’t shatter the life of Zelensky’s most powerful ally unless the script has been approved at a higher altitude. Yermak resigned in hours. No protest. No resistance. Because he understood something Zelensky still refuses to accept, when the Americans decide the purge is necessary, the only question left is who gets thrown first.
Zelensky actually believes that by sacrificing his own accomplices, he can protect himself. He imagines that tossing Yermak overboard will save his own skin. It is the final delusion of a man already circling the drain, the belief that loyalty to the machine will buy mercy from it. He should look into the eyes of Saakashvili.
Yermak’s response, texting foreign papers about “desecration” and “no dignity,” announcing he’ll go “to the front” as if Shakespearean redemption lies in a trench, only confirms his exile. It is the language of a man who realizes too late he has become disposable. A man who spent the war in fortified offices now promises to “serve on the front line.” Everyone understands what that means: the exit door is being painted as patriotism.
But the loudest panic is not in Kiev, it’s in London and Brussels. Europe knows that if this war ends now, peace will pry open every lie they’ve told their own people. The EU destroyed its industry, strangled its energy supply, gutted its middle class, and mortgaged its future, all for a proxy war Washington is now quietly exiting. Brussels needed Yermak’s head on a platter to cleanse the corruption stench and force their rouge puppet to wear the inevitable capitulation.
Washington, meanwhile, has moved into the endgame. The U.S. wants silence, and will take a hasty offramp to stave off total humiliation, and let Europe wear it. Europe wants noise to drown out its own culpability. Zelensky wants fire because chaos is the only thing keeping him in office. Three conflicting agendas — and only one player with the resources to impose order. Spoiler: it isn’t Zelensky, and it certainly isn’t the EU.
Russia observes all of this with the serene patience of a side that holds every card. Moscow doesn’t need to gloat because the West’s internal fracture is louder than any Russian statement. The terms remain unchanged: either negotiations occur on the basis of battlefield reality, or Russia continues to dismantle NATO’s proxy forces until there is nothing left to negotiate. For Russia, both outcomes strengthen its position. For the West, both outcomes accelerate the reckoning.
This is why Yermak fell. This is why the timing was precise. And this is why the next phase will be even bloodier – politically, not militarily. More raids will come as Washington forces Kiev into line. More downloading of humiliation onto Europe. Zelensky will grow more frantic, more isolated, more willing to sacrifice anyone but himself. But he will eventually learn the lesson every proxy leader learns: when you serve the empire, you don’t get to choose the manner of your exit.
Yermak wasn’t removed because of corruption. He was removed because someone had to be the first offering on the altar of Western retreat. And when the dust settles, when Europe finally confronts the consequences of its imperial cosplay, Yermak’s fall will be remembered as the moment the facade cracked and the whole edifice truly began to crumble.
Because this war won’t be defined by less of what Russia won and more by what Europe destroyed with its own hands.
by The Islander [11-28-2025].
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.
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