When the lights go out in Kyiv: power, politics and a political earthquake at the heart of Ukraine
It was the kind of early morning that sticks in your bones: sirens threaded with the hiss of anti-aircraft batteries, the smell of wet pavement and diesel, and the muffled conversations of people who have learned to measure life in daylight hours between air-raid alerts.
In that fragile hour, investigators from Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Agency (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office knocked on the door of a man once called the country’s “vice-president” — Andriy Yermak. By evening, President Volodymyr Zelensky had announced a sweeping reorganisation of his office and Yermak’s resignation, signing a decree to dismiss the man who for years had been both his gatekeeper and his most controversial ally.
A dramatic fall, a fraught moment
The headlines read like a state in tension: a powerful chief of staff under criminal investigation at the very moment Ukraine needs unity more than ever. According to investigators, Yermak is being probed over alleged involvement in a roughly $100 million kickback scheme tied to the energy sector — a charge that landed with particular force as Russia intensifies strikes on power infrastructure, threatening winter heating and plunging neighborhoods into darkness.
“People are angry,” said Olena, a schoolteacher in a Kyiv suburb who arrived at a shelter with a thermos of tea. “Not because one man fell, but because every time corruption and war mix, ordinary people pay. Our parents worry about the electricity and children worry about the sirens.”
For Zelensky, the decision to accept Yermak’s resignation — and to promise consultations on a replacement — was political tightrope walking. The chief of staff had been named earlier this year as Ukraine’s lead negotiator for delicate talks with the United States about a proposed peace framework that Kyiv fears could demand painful concessions. With Yermak now sidelined, Rustem Umerov, the secretary of the National Security and Defence Council, has been tapped to lead the delegation to Washington.
Power, proximity and the architecture of influence
Yermak’s trajectory was never that of a traditional politician. A former film producer and copyright lawyer, he joined Volodymyr Zelensky’s circle when the comedian turned president swept to power in 2019. Over time, colleagues and critics said, he amassed an extraordinary concentration of influence — controlling access to the president, shaping appointments and becoming, to many, the face of a new power centre in Kyiv.
“He was the person who decided who could and couldn’t see the president,” a former senior official told me. “That kind of control breeds enemies and fosters a blind spot: you start believing there are no checks.” The official described Yermak as “paranoid” — a term echoed in private corridors and cafe conversations across the capital.
It’s a paradox of wartime governance: the same centralisation that can speed decisions in crisis can also shield wrongdoing and erode public trust. And as winter approaches, with missiles and drones increasingly targeting the grid, the stakes are not just political — they are thermal. How do you keep hospitals running, schools heated and homes lit when the power keeps blinking out?
Corruption and credibility: why this case matters
Anti-corruption agencies moving against a top official during wartime sends a complicated message: one of accountability and one of potential instability. The European Commission publicly commended Ukrainian investigators this week, underscoring that “the anti-corruption bodies in Ukraine are doing their work,” in the words of a Brussels spokesperson. That endorsement matters: Western capitals and lenders often make support contingent on judicial independence and transparent governance.
Yet, for many Ukrainians, the investigation underscores anger that has been simmering for years. A March 2025 poll by the Razumkov Centre showed that roughly two-thirds of the population distrust Yermak — a startling figure for a man who once stood shoulder to shoulder with the president through some of the darkest hours of the war.
“If you lose a feeling of fairness, then the war is harder to sustain on the home front,” explained Volodymyr Fesenko, a political analyst. “People sacrifice a lot. They need to feel leaders are also sacrificing and not enriching themselves from the crisis.”
The human geography of a scandal
Walk through Kyiv and you see the human collateral of this moment. In the subway, where families still descend to wait out night strikes, a grandmother named Svitlana threads wool into mittens under the glare of a battery-powered light.
“We knit in the shelter now,” she said with a rueful smile. “My son worries about the house, my daughter worries about the kids’ school. They used to trust the leaders. Now they tell us: we must be careful who we trust.” The mittens are for a newborn whose parents fled from the east; the supply chain that makes those winter warmers can feel, increasingly, like the fragile seam holding a society together.
Meanwhile, military officials say the attacks are escalating. Kyiv’s mayor reported that a recent drone strike wounded seven people, damaged residential buildings and set cars ablaze. Russia’s full-scale invasion, launched in February 2022, remains the defining calamity of this era — a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands and forced millions from their homes.
Diplomacy shaken — and the wider question of unity
Internationally, Yermak’s removal complicates a very sensitive set of negotiations. The United States has been quietly advancing a peace outline that Kyiv worries could require territorial concessions. Ukraine’s negotiating team had been scheduled to travel to the U.S. this weekend — possibly to Florida — to discuss the framework. Those talks will now be led by Umerov, two senior Ukrainian officials said. The switch tightens the timeline and raises questions: Can a delegation recalibrate quickly enough? Will the absence of a long-standing interlocutor alter the tone or the substance?
“There will be no mistakes on our part,” Zelensky said in a video address, invoking unity as both armor and balm. “If we lose our unity, we risk losing everything: ourselves, Ukraine, our future.” The sentence landed like a benediction — and a warning.
Yet unity is not produced by slogans. It is baked in fair institutions, in courts that work, in agencies that investigate without fear or favour, and in leaders who accept scrutiny. For Ukraine, a country fighting for its territorial integrity and for democratic legitimacy on the world stage, these internal battles are not mere domestic theatre. They are central to maintaining the trust of allies and the resilience of the nation.
What comes next?
In the short term, expect the political air to be thick. Expect more investigations, more pressure from opposition figures, and more calls from Western partners for transparency. Expect, too, the daily grind of war to continue: air-defence sirens, schoolchildren learning to duck under desks, engineers running backup generators to keep wards warm.
But beyond the immediate dramas, there is a larger question for readers everywhere: how does a democracy at war hold itself to account without unraveling? That question is not just Ukrainian. From capitals in Europe to towns across North America, the balance between security and governance is a recurring fault line. How we answer it says as much about our political maturity as it does about our compassion.
On a cold evening in Kyiv, as lights flickered back to life in one neighborhood and stayed silent in another, a young volunteer named Mykhailo wiped soot from a generator and looked out at the city he didn’t want to leave.
“We fight from the trenches, yes, but we also fight for the right to live honestly,” he said. “We can win the war on the battlefield, but if we lose it at home, what have we really defended?”
That, perhaps, is the toughest front of all. And it is one every reader — whether in Kyiv, London, Washington or beyond — should watch with care.
