Escape From Kiev

Ministers flee, oligarchs gossip, and the “reformer” runs out of exits.

The newest corruption fiasco in Kiev barely merits surprise anymore, but it does deserve a proper dissection. At the rotten core is Timur Mindich, a hanger-on who has orbited Zelensky’s business dealings for years and happens to be chummy with Igor Kolomoysky, the oligarch who funded Zelensky’s 2019 rise before landing in a prison cell courtesy of the man he helped elect. But pretending this saga began with Mindich is too cute. Its real opening act came earlier this year with Oleksiy Chernyshov, then-Deputy Prime Minister and Zelensky’s personal financial consigliere. Following that thread matters, because it shows how this whole drama has been metastasizing quietly for months while Western officials and media outlets pretended not to see it.

I’ve written before about Ukraine’s little circus of overlapping “anti-corruption” bodies cobbled together a year after the 2014 coup in Kiev. These agencies weren’t born out of some late-blooming moral conscience; they were the entrance fee Kiev had to pay to keep Western money moving. And of course, at least one of them, NABU, has long been an open secret as a playground for Washington’s various emissaries, funneled through NGOs, embassies, and the usual acronym soup.

So when NABU finally worked up the nerve to hand Chernyshov a “notice of suspicion” earlier this year, Zelensky didn’t hesitate. He moved to shield his financial handler the way any political boss guards the guy who keeps the ledgers straight. A handful of NABU investigators were suddenly hit with criminal charges that had nothing to do with anything, and the corruption case against Chernyshov promptly dissolved.

The timing of NABU’s sudden burst of integrity wasn’t exactly mystifying. Their investigation kicked into high gear after that Oval Office shout-fest featuring Zelensky, Trump, and Vance, a diplomatic spectacle that made WrestleMania look subdued. Analysts in Kiev didn’t need special briefings to understand what happened. Washington pulled the leash, NABU barked on command, and everyone pretended it was some spontaneous crusade for justice.

Zelensky understood immediately what this meant, because every loose thread NABU tugged led straight back to him. So he went for the obvious move: cripple the watchdogs before they wandered too close to the owner. He pushed a conveniently timed plan to fold Ukraine’s supposedly independent anti-corruption agencies into the Prosecutor General’s office, which already serves as his multi-tool for political retaliation. Parliament, eager to please, stamped it through, and in an instant, NABU went from attack dog to harmless lap pet.

Thinking Washington would quietly surrender one of its favorite levers for micromanaging Ukrainian politics was almost sweet in its naivete. Zelensky seemed to believe gutting NABU could be spun as an internal housekeeping exercise instead of a direct hit on a prized American instrument. The backlash from the US was loud enough to make him reverse course overnight, and his docile parliament dutifully repealed the law with the same mechanical obedience it showed when passing it days earlier.

But even after the ritual backpedaling, the reality didn’t change. The criminal cases against NABU investigators kept grinding forward, a clear sign that the punishment phase was still very much alive. Meanwhile, Chernyshov sat comfortably in office, untouched and untouchable, until the spectacle finally lurched forward this morning with his arrest. In the warped ecosystem of Ukrainian “reform,” that practically counts as a surprise twist.

The supposed mastermind of this whole affair is Mindich, who conveniently bolted to Israel a day before the scandal became public. Even Kolomoysky, a man not exactly known for delicate moral judgments, calls Mindich a dim bulb. Which makes the obvious point even harder to ignore: if this guy is the frontman, then someone far smarter is behind the curtain. That’s exactly what Ruslan Magamedrasulov, the former NABU detective on the case, said earlier today. He’s now sitting in jail on charges that look like they were scribbled down five minutes before filing.

Ukraine’s Justice Minister, German Galushchenko, and Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk have now joined the growing procession of sudden resignations after being named as suspects. Hrynchuk didn’t even wait for the parquet flooring to cool before fleeing the country. And Rustem Umerov, the ex–Defense Minister and head of the National Security Council, slipped off to the US two days ago. He has citizenship, property, and his entire family already there, so calling it “flight” is generous; he basically went home.

Several senior MPs are now publicly claiming that Umerov is cooperating with the FBI on corruption schemes inside Ukraine’s top leadership. If true, the picture sharpens considerably. NABU wasn’t operating solo. This looks a lot more like a coordinated operation, and the panic radiating from Kiev suggests everyone involved knows it.

This wave of strategic disappearances leaves only two figures still standing: Zelensky and the man who actually runs the country, the “gray cardinal” Andriy Yermak. Those leaked photos of duffel bags stuffed with cash were great entertainment for the public, but a $100-million kickback scheme at Energoatom is B-tier money. That’s walking-around cash for the people at the top.

And nobody serious thinks NABU’s first strike, aimed at Zelensky’s cabinet, was anything more than a polite warning shot. The real story hasn’t begun. What’s obvious now is that Washington still needs Zelensky in place and compliant for a bit longer. After that, he’s just another expendable placeholder waiting for the trapdoor.

Ukraine’s parliament, including Zelensky’s own party loyalists, is suddenly howling for Andriy Yermak’s dismissal. Zelensky will fight like a cornered raccoon to keep him in office, not out of sentiment but because Yermak knows every secret, every payoff, every buried scandal. He’s too entrenched and too informed to simply “remove.” Zelensky is chained to him until the whole structure collapses, which increasingly feels like a matter of scheduling, not speculation.

The public is now divided into two bleakly predictable camps: the wide-eyed believers who think Zelensky simply had catastrophic luck filling his government with thieves, and the realists who assume he’s part of the network. Take your pick; either way, Zelensky’s private fantasy of a peaceful, indictment-free retirement is evaporating in real time.