Former Presidential Office Head Andriy Yermak tried to achieve the dismissal of Security Service of Ukraine chief Vasyl Maliuk a week before his own dismissal.
This is stated in Ukrainska Pravda's investigation "Ali Baba and the Forty Statesmen. How Yermak Lost His Right-Hand Chair and Didn't Get Charged."
The authors reconstruct the events of the day when NABU detectives and SAP prosecutors came with searches to Yermak's residence on Shovkovychna Street.
In parallel, at the Presidential Office, described as the decision-making center, a complex political "reassessment" of the consequences of the strike on the head of state's inner circle was unfolding.
It is noted that Operation Midas, which was planned as a demonstration of institutional independence during wartime, showed something else in practice: a strong blow to a figure embodying the center of the power vertical automatically becomes a test for the president himself.
According to UP's reconstruction, around 9 a.m. Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, SBU chief Vasyl Maliuk, NABU director Semen Kryvonos and SAP head Oleksandr Klymenko arrived at the Presidential Office.
Maliuk's participation in this meeting, according to the publication, was not accidental. Journalists, citing their sources, write that throughout the entire previous week before his own resignation, Yermak tried to achieve the dismissal of the SBU head. According to this version, he believed that Maliuk allegedly "overlooked" Operation Midas and did not protect him from the anti-corruption agencies' strike.
It was also reported that US President Donald Trump commented on the corruption scandal in Ukraine.
