By Ted Snider, Responsible Statecraft, 5/12/26
An explosive new poll suggests that a majority of Ukrainians feel their future is more threatened by corruption in the government than by Russian military aggression.
Given that Ukraine’s anti-corruption watchdog just charged Andriy Yermak, former head of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, with money laundering and corruption, the results of this survey are particularly salient.
The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology’s (KIIS) poll, conducted between April 20 and 27 and released on May 6, asked Ukrainians who lived in territory controlled by Ukraine what they “consider the biggest threat to Ukraine’s development.” They were given two choices: government corruption or Russia’s military aggression. Some 54% said they were more concerned with corruption; 39% identified the Russians.
Additional new polling conducted by KIIS suggests that not only concern with corruption is going up, but that trust in Zelensky is going in the wrong direction too — though the majority of those polled still trust the Ukrainian president rather than not, 58% to 36%. This represents a 4-point drop from the 62% who trusted him only a month earlier. Complaints such as the continuing war, unspecified “unfulfilled promises,” and corruption topped the list among those who lacked full faith in the Ukrainian president.
These criticisms are endemic and reflect a larger problem for Ukraine, say critics. Sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko of Freie Universität Berlin told Responsible Statecraft that the concern with corruption identified in the polling shows that “Ukrainians fundamentally distrust their state and the elite and this has not changed during the ‘existential’ war that was supposed to unite the country.”
Additionally, Ishchenko asserts that the “crisis of legitimacy” has harmed the war effort because as “the massive draft dodging and desertion” shows, Ukrainians “do not want to sacrifice themselves” for a state they do not trust.
A breakdown of the people who said they did not trust Zelensky found that 20% identified corruption as the cause. And, in that regard, things could be getting worse. Aside of Yermak’s charges on Monday, new revelations about last year’s investigation into a $100 million kickback scheme could add to the damage.r
In November 2025, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) cooperated in “a major anti-corruption operation” that led to charges being laid against multiple high-level officials. Some of them inhabited Zelensky’s innermost circle. Some of them have now been suspended or fired or have resigned. Several more have been implicated.
Timur Mindich, a close friend of Zelensky and co-owner of his Kvartal 95 media production company, may have been the ringleader of the operation. According to NABU, Timur Mindich, “controlled the work of the so-called ‘laundry room,’ where criminally-obtained funds were laundered.”
As NABU describes it, the “high-level criminal organization” bribed energy contractors between 10 and 15 percent of their contracts’ value. But what really stung Ukrainians is that some of those contracts were for defensive fortifications to protect energy infrastructure that was being bombed by Russia. And while those strikes left many Ukrainians without power, tapes obtained by NABU seem to contain conversations about delaying these fortification projects to obtain maximum profit on kickbacks from more lucrative alternatives.
Now a new set of tapes has been released that brings the corruption scandal back into the attention of Ukrainians and could make concern with corruption and distrust in Zelensky even worse.
The just-released tapes appear to show people who are very close to Zelensky, including Mindich, influencing then-Defence Minister Rustem Umerov’s decisions on defense contracts. The tapes also appear to capture conversations about luxury estates that were financed by the corruption scheme, including one that is allegedly for Yermak.
Mykola Hladyshchenko, a high ranking official of a state-owned bank at the centre of the corruption scandal, temporarily suspended himself after the new tapes implicated his bank in the scandal. But the biggest official yet to be charged in the wake of the new tapes is Yermak.
Nevertheless, throughout the war, Ukrainians have proven their resilience and their optimism. Despite years of hardship, asked whether they saw their country as a “prosperous EU member” or a “ruined country” ten years from now, a full 63% still opted for the optimistic choice. That is down only 3% since the beginning of the year. But corruption does negatively impact Ukrainians domestically while harming their chances for European Union accession, Western integration, and European support. The worsening kick back corruption scandal will only reinforce this pattern of distrust and make Ukrainians’ fears for the future of their country worse.
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The Ukrainian Political War: Who Is Waging It and Is Its Target Ukraine’s Corruption or Zelenskiy?
By Gordon Hahn, Substack, 5/14/26
Note: Articles are cross-posted as is. Typos are in the original.
Recently, four simultaneous events in Ukraine that markedly intensified the already overwhelming stench of corruption surrounding the country’s leader Volodomyr Zelenskiy, his elite, and the Maidan regime as a whole. Besides that stench, there is another smell: that of a well-orchestrated campaign to weaken Zelsnkiy and drive him from power. The director or directors of this campaign are almost certainly in Washington. However, it cannot be excluded that its one-time minions have gone rogue and are playing a game internal to Ukraine alone.
The four events are the following.
First was last week’s release of new Mindichgate or Midasgate tapes implicating both Chairman of the Defense and Security Committee of Ukraine and former Defense Minister Rustem Umerov and former head of Zelenskiy’s Office of the President Andriy Yermak, who was forced to resign from this, the second most powerful position in Ukraine after the first wave of Mindichtapes and accusations were released by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) last summer. These tapes revealed more evidence of these officials’ involvement in graft involving the casting agency-turned defense industrial enterprise producing drones owned by Zelenskiy’s close associate Timur Mindich. Another tranche of tapes released a day later covered discussions between Mindich and Umerov regarding a corrupt real estate deal that was to end with the construction of four mansions—one apparently designated for Zelenskiy himself (www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/04/29/8032290/ and www.intellinews.com/new-nabu-tapes-implicate-zelenskiy-s-inner-circle-in-corruption-440581/).
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Second, new charges were levelled by NABU against Yermak, a former deputy prime minister and four others, including a “businessman (likley Mindich). The indictment charges Yermak and the others for laundering more than 460 million griven (Ukrainian currency) by constructing a luxury residential complex in the village of Kozyn, the Kyiv region including “four private estates with auxiliary facilities, along with a shared spa complex, on an 8-hectare land plot. Nearly USD 9 million of the construction costs was money-laundered by Mindich, who was intended to become the owner of one of the estates (https://nabu.gov.ua/en/news/legalizatciia-460-mln-grn-na-elitnomu-budivnytctvi-pid-kyyevom-novi-pidozry/ and https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-12/ukraine-s-anti-graft-agency-probes-officials-in-real-estate-case).
Third, on Tuesday Yermak was detained in the center of Kiev. The Special Anti-Corruption Office of the Procuracy (SAPO) then released information regarding what its agents had found in his car upon detention. The materials included Yernak’s “plan maximum,” which involved an attempt to make appointments to top posts in Ukraine’s secret police, the Security Service of Ukraine or SBU (https://strana.news/news/505418-v-avto-ermaka-nashli-plany-naznachenij-na-kljuchevye-dolzhnosti-v-sbu.html). It is worth noting that the SBU officials have been targets of recent NABU investigations (https://nabu.gov.ua/en/news/vymagannia-110-tys-khabaria-pratcivnykam-sbu-ta-advokatu-povidomyly-pro-pidozru/). Indeed, on the SBU or at least former SBU officials named in Yermak’s plan maximum is General Il’ya Vityuk, who was charged with abuse of office for self-enrichment in connection with a real estate deal and removed from office in September 2025, shortly after the Mindichgate revelations were made (https://strana.news/news/490945-vitjuku-izbrali-meru-presechenija.html). In addition to Yermak’s plan, which may have been of a pre-coup or some other nefarious nature, “evidence of influence” on the State Bureau of Investigation (GBR), the General Prosecurtor’s Office, and the Finance Ministry (https://strana.news/news/505418-v-avto-ermaka-nashli-plany-naznachenij-na-kljuchevye-dolzhnosti-v-sbu.html). Also, in one memo found, Yermak mentions a fortune teller he advised with in making personnel decisions (https://strana.news/news/505414-prokurory-zajavili-chto-ermak-sovetovalsja-s-hadalkoj-po-kadrovym-voprosam.html). At his detention herain on Wednesday Yermak faced with detention or release under a large bail sum. As of writing, the hearing is delayed, and Zelenskiy remains silent.
Fourth, the day prior to NABU’s indictment of Yermak and his cohorts, Zelenskiy’s former press secretary, Yulia Mendel, gave a blockbuster interview to Tucker Carlson in which she confirmed the massive corruption inside Zelenskiy’s inner circle and the leader’s own encouragement of, and likely involvement in it as well as Zelenskiy’s immense narcisssism, simulacratism (if you will) or emphasis on propaganda to make an alternative reality, and drug taking (www.facebook.com/reel/1609995450289819?__cft__[0]=AZbB0kuw3ErbGzscTq4kFyDQPMTYtIL0D-3ZzXsRIKq9kPHTatsKrK_GHHT_r6uIAkQ9RhQOGGbiWHRZLNT1XoOA3TGkgInEulwQVJcKAhpweJ_rraxvGXuKT_GVDZEJW4NtNixx0tee8foF3uGg-f_WS-4zkvSa6AzVmRbJUVIYGr7ZpeTHXXDZzjj-ffmDEpLWiw1id6GqOfNGetN8kR2z&__tn__=-UK-R).
The simultaneity of these events makes it almost a certaintly that they are part of a well-planned political assault on Zelenskiy. As I have noted in previous articles related to the original Mindichgate revelations, investigations, indictments, arrests, and ‘departures’ of suspected high state officisls from the country, this is likely an effort that originates in Washington, as NABU is closely tied to the FBI and the U.S. government as well as the Democrat Party and George Soros (https://gordonhahn.substack.com/p/zelenskiy-kiev-in-quicksand?r=stexy; https://gordonhahn.substack.com/p/coup-poker-again-in-kiev?r=stexy; https://gordonhahn.substack.com/p/kiev-coup-poker-update?r=stexy; and https://gordonhahn.substack.com/p/kiev-pre-coup-crisis-politics-update?r=stexy).
The tightening of the corruption noose around Zelenskiy’s neck has to be part of a larger plan. It is likely that two forces in Washington generally opposed to each other – US President Donald Trump and the ‘Deep State’ – in a rare case are working towards the same end for different reasons. Trump is endeavoring still to press Zelenskiy to begin honest peace negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and at a minimum agree to give up the rest of Donetsk, if not Zaporozhe and Kherson, to Moscow in order to secure an agreement. In the event, Zelenskiy continues to hold out and fight the war, Yermak’s successor in the OP and former military intelligence (HUR) chief Kirill Budanov could be a replacement candidate. Budanov has repeatedly warned of a coming disaster at the front and has been negotiating prisoner releases and other issues with Russian military intelligence on an episodic basis with results. He could be a compromise candidate acceptable to the CIA, MI6, the Democrat Party, and globalist oligarchs like Soros. After all it was the Barak Obama administration’s CIA that trained Budanov in intelligence, sabotage, and assassination operations.
The CIA, the Democrat Party, globalist oligarchs like Soros, and MI6 likely are hoping to bring a new force to power; one that will continue the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War. To be sure, some in globalist-captured Europe are nervous about some of their EU colleagues’ plans to militarize and plan for war with Russia. Besides Slovakia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and even still Hungary, Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb said it was time to begin talks with Russia (https://news.liga.net/en/war/news/stubb-said-he-was-looking-for-an-envoy-or-group-of-leaders-from-europe-to-contact-russia). Clearly, Trump is pressuring Europe to stop its escalation of the Ukrainian War and political-military tensions with Russia and back his stalled, all but dead Ukrainian peace drive. With Ukraine suffering military, social, economic, financial, and political crises and a Russian summer offensive around the corner, the jig is up for the globalists’ golden boy, but some of the globalists and their allies still may not realize it. The Europeans, who have some influence over NABU, may also be using the Mindichgate corrupt scandal in order to trap Zelenskiy so that he continues to do its bidding by fighting Russia and to not to dare to even think about seeking a peace agreement with Putin.
In order to prevent Russia from exacting a strategic defeat on NATO, the U.S., and the globalist-oligarchic elite, it is more likely that these forces are either preparing the ground for Zelenskiy’s fall or directly pursuing it. In the event, they would like to see former commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valeriy Zaluzhniy and/or neofascist elements, such as the military’s well-armed 3rd Army Corps ‘Azov’ led by Brigadier General Andriy Biletskiy and/or the 1st Army Corps ‘Azov’ led by Brigadier general Denys ‘Redis’ Prokopenko. Zaluzhniy has had good relations with another neofascist formation, Right Sector, whose founder, Dmitro Yarosh, he appointed as an advisor of his before the war, so he, like so many in Ukraine, are willing and able to work with these extremist forces. Biletskiy, as I wrote recently, is on the rise in terms of coercive power as well as pubic popularity and authority. Should Biletskiy’s and Prokopenko’s respective Azov corps overcome their differences, they, along with Zaluzhniy, would constitute a formidable force capable of pulling a coup d’ etat. If one doubts that elements in the West would turn to neofascist to save their Ukraine project and effort to deliver a strategic defeat to Russia, then you need look no farther than Syria where an Al Qaida leader was ushered into power in Syria. U.S. and other Western intelligence work with Ukrainian fascists has a long pedigree and is in demand today.
Another possibility, less likely albeit, is that the West’s s minions in NABU and elsewhere in Ukraine are going rogue and are playing a largely domestic game internal to Ukraine. NABU and much of the rest of the Ukrainian government is dependent on Western financing, and it could not be waging war against Zelenskiy and his corruption without some sort of Western backing.
Either way, the roof is coming down on Zelenskiy’s head and the Maidan regime. The corrupt circus of this clown and superb actor is closing down. The stakes are sky high in NATO and the West, especially with the Iran debacle and shift to a Russo-Sino-empowered multipolar world. With the Ukrainian army in rapid retreat this summer, it is time for the West to conjure up a Plan B, however futile or dangerous it might be.