Ukrainian presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak confirmed the search, saying he had offered ‘full cooperation’.
Andrey Yermak, who leads Kiev’s negotiating team trying to hammer out the terms of a plan proposed by the United States to end the four-year war with Russia, confirmed that his apartment was being searched on Friday and said he was fully cooperating.
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“There are no obstacles for the investigators. They have been given full access to the apartment and my lawyers are present at the scene and cooperating with law enforcement officials. I have full cooperation,” he said on social media.
In a joint statement, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office said the search was “authorized” and linked to an unspecified investigation.
Earlier this month, two anti-corruption agencies unveiled a wide-ranging investigation into an alleged $100 million bribery scheme at the state nuclear power company, implicating former senior officials and an ex-business partner of Zelensky.
Friday’s search comes as the Ukrainian president faces increasing pressure from the administration of United States President Donald Trump to agree to Washington’s proposal to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
Ukraine and its European allies have raised concerns that the Trump-backed plan includes some elements that Russia has been actively pushing for, including ceding additional territory to Ukraine and cutting the size of its military.
But a revised proposal has been put forward and Kiev has said it is ready for talks.
The searches are also likely to increase tensions between Zelensky and his political opponents amid peace talks.
In a statement on Thursday, the European Solidarity opposition party criticized Yermak’s role as negotiator and called on Zelensky to engage in “honest dialogue” with other parties.
‘black Friday’
Viktor Shlynchak, a political analyst at the Kyiv-based Institute for World Politics, described the searches as “Black Friday” for Yermak and suggested that Zelensky might be forced to fire him.
“It looks like we may soon have a different head of the negotiating team,” he wrote on Facebook.
Yermak, 54, is Zelensky’s most important ally but a divisive figure in Kiev, where his opponents say he has accumulated power, maintains access to the president and ruthlessly sidelines critical voices.
A former film producer and copyright lawyer, Yermak came into politics with Zelensky in 2019, having previously worked with the now-president during his time as a popular comedian.
He is widely considered the second most influential person in the country and is sometimes nicknamed “the Vice President”.
The corruption investigation revolves around an alleged scheme involving Energoatom, the state nuclear power company that supplies more than half the country’s electricity.
“That (case) has been circulating in Ukraine for several weeks, shaking the government,” Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands reported from Kiev on Friday. “The allegation is that approximately $100 million … has been spent through a kind of laundromat,” he said.
Anti-corruption investigators have said they suspect Zelensky’s one-time business partner, Timur Mindich, was the mastermind of the plot.
Mindich has fled the country, any criminal proceedings against him are likely to be conducted in his absence. Two top ministers have also resigned over this scam.
Challands also said the investigation comes as Zelensky’s government tried in July to strip Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies of their independence and place them under the control of its Prosecutor-General.
But Ukrainian leaders backed down after massive public protests.
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