Prof. Haran on Zelensky and Yermak

The charges against Yermak came as no surprise

When Zelensky came to power in 2019, 80% of Ukrainians trusted him, but the number dropped to 37% by February 2022. The level of trust skyrocketed to 80% when Russia's all-out war started.

Over the past year, trust in Zelensky has ranged between 53% and 65%, standing at 58% in April, according to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).

"I don't think Zelensky drew the necessary conclusions, and his sense of messianism has only intensified," says Oleksii Haran, politics professor at the Kyiv Mohyla Academy and research advisor at the Democratic Initiatives Foundation.

"He did not begin preparing the country for a prolonged war, he avoided making unpopular decisions, he started shifting responsibility for mobilization onto parliament, and this ultimately led to the enormous mistakes we are seeing now."

Olexiy Haran, politics professor at the Kyiv Mohyla Academy and research advisor at the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, says the charges against Yermak came as no surprise, as such a scenario had been widely discussed in recent months.

"The National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) were doing their work and collecting evidence, so this development appears to be a natural outcome," Haran told the Kyiv Independent.

"What is striking is not the corruption itself — we at least suspected it existed at the top — but the cynicism."

Yermak's fall from grace began in July with the attack against the anti-corruption institutions investigating theft in high cabinets. The move sparked mass protests and was later reversed under pressure from the streets and calls from Brussels.