Why is Andriy Yermak so powerful?
The head of the Ukrainian presidential office is actually an office manager. But President Zelensky has given Andriy Yermak far more power. Who is the man - and how powerful is he really? - An article by Isabel Schayani, WDR/tagesschau.
When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke at the UN Security Council last week, a man wearing olive-green clothing could be seen sitting just to his right behind him. Even when he talks to heads of state or visits soldiers near the front, the tall "green cardinal", as some in Kiev call him, can always be seen in his immediate vicinity.
At the Swiss peace summit in June, the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andriy Yermak, stood in the front row between the heads of government for a group photo. The then Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was only spotted in the second row. Yermak, the shadow of Zelensky, has long been conspicuous in Ukraine and abroad.
The journalist and knowledgeable observer of Ukrainian politics, Denis Trubetskoy, sums it up like this: "It's not possible to have much more power than that which Yermak has." There is no doubt "that Yermak is the second most powerful man in Ukraine." This assessment is not only shared by the independent Ukrainian press, but can also be heard from those close to the presidential office.
On the one hand, the constitution does not provide for this amount of authority for the head of the presidential office - on the other hand, Yermak acts on behalf of the president. His political opponents see him as a power-hungry politician who wants to succeed the president.
The well-connected political scientist and blogger Mykola Davydiuk also describes Yermak's power as "enormous." He is stronger than the prime minister and everyone else in the power apparatus. "He is the producer who serves the president and does all the stuff for him so that the star has a free hand and can move and shine."
However, Davydiuk points out that in a country at war, there is more chaos in the presidential administration than in peacetime. This could justify the otherwise unusually high level of power wielded by its leadership.
to continue
@ukrainejournal
