And this week another former unpaid adviser to Zelenskyy’s office linked to Tatarov, Artem Shilo, was arrested by detectives with the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine on charges of embezzling $2.48 million from Ukrzaliznytsia, Ukraine’s state railway company. The allegation is that he was the ringleader of a group involved in the acquisition of transformers from a Bulgarian front company which were sold to Ukrzaliznytsia at a markup of 100 percent.
Asked about the Shilo arrest and whether others in the president’s office may become the targets of corruption probes, Yermak noted that at the time of his arrest he was no longer an adviser in the president’s office and was working at the SBU. And he insisted: “For the president, for me, we have zero tolerance of corruption. Fighting corruption was one of the main motives for Zelenskyy to go into politics.”
He pointed out that under Zelenskky the wings of the oligarchs have been clipped and several are now sitting in jail. “That’s has never happened in Ukraine before,” he said.
And without prompting, Yermak referred to a money-for-government jobs bribery investigation into his brother, Denys, which was closed in December by NABU, the anti-corruption bureau. “We’re living in a democracy and it is very easy to make unjustified accusations and there’s a lot of dirty PR around to try to break people’s reputations. People say brutal things, including about me. You know there was an operation against me and against my brother. But now my brother in the front line and he’s really fighting but nobody reports that,” he said.
Yermak denies that either he or his brother did anything wrong. Zelenskyy has said publicly he has full trust in Yermak and his integrity. “I work for my country,” he told POLITICO. “I don’t do anything illegal. We have a strong anti-corruption mechanism now. If anyone is guilty, they go to prison. I’m the chief of staff of the president so I get attacked. But look, I’m comfortable, because I am honest with myself,” he added.
And despite occasionally pinching himself to make sure he’s where he is and doing what he’s doing, Yermak said: “I now understand that all my previous life, all the books I have read, all that I have done and all my experience, prepared me for this job.”
