Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has no connection to a major corruption investigation conducted by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), involving his former chief of staff, Andriy Yermak.
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On Tuesday, Oleksandr Klymenko, SAPO’s head stated that Zelenskyy “has not been and is not currently involved in the investigation,” which concerns Yermak but also Oleksiy Chernyshov, an ex-deputy prime minister and Timur Mindich, Zelenskyy’s former business partner.
The suspects are accused of laundering around €9 million (460 million hryvnias) between 2021 and 2025 through a luxury property development project near Kyiv.
In addition, a sitting president is immune from prosecution under Ukrainian law.
Anti-corruption prosecutors are now seeking Yermak’s pre-trial detention. A court hearing in his case began on Tuesday afternoon, but consideration of the preventive measure was postponed to allow for review of the case materials.
“The prosecution will ask the court to impose a preventive measure (for Yermak) in the form of detention with the alternative of bail in the amount of UAH 180 million (around €3.5 million),” Klymenko said on Tuesday.
Prosecutors also requested that the examination of evidence be held behind closed doors, despite significant public interest and live broadcast of the proceedings.
Dozens of journalists attended the courtroom proceedings. According to the defence, the case file comprises 16 volumes of roughly 250 pages each, totalling around 4,000 pages.
Why is Yermak under investigation?
Yermak’s lawyer Ihor Fomin has called the case “unfounded” and denied that his client had any involvement in the allegations of money-laundering.
“As far as I’m concerned, this whole situation has been provoked by public pressure. In my entire career, I have never encountered such pressure, including pressure on law enforcement agencies, to have Mr Yermak served with a notice of suspicion.”
“In my view there are simply no grounds to bring any criminal allegations against him, nor can there be,” Fomin said in an interview with Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspline.
Yermak resigned from his post in November after NABU and SAPO searched the premises linked to him as part of another corruption investigation involving the state nuclear power company.
Back in the autumn, Yermak was not charged, but he resigned amid growing pressure on the presidential office over potential involvement in the case.
“Dynasty” scheme
According to the investigation, around €9 million were laundered between 2021 and 2025 through the construction of an elite residences in the village of Kozyn, a wealthy suburb south of Kyiv.
Part of the financing is said to have come from funds obtained through corruption schemes around Ukraine’s state company Enerhoatom.
The anti-corruption bureau reported back in November 2025 that a group of Ukrainian officials and the management of the strategic enterprise were collecting bribes from Enerhoatom contractors, amounting to 10-15% of each contract’s value.
Around €85 million in funds were allegedly laundered, according to the NABU.
The allegation is that they received payments from contractors building fortifications against Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, while millions of Ukrainians across the country were suffering from power outages and blackouts after Moscow’s relentless bombardments.
Mindich was named an alleged ringleader of the graft scheme.
Zelenskyy imposed sanctions on Mindich, who fled Ukraine for Israel a day before the NABU raids last autumn.
