On 28 November, Andriy Yermak, head of the president’s office and arguably the second most powerful man in Ukraine, announced that he was resigning after searches at his apartment linked to Operation Midas, a sweeping investigation into corruption surrounding Ukraine’s nuclear energy agency, Energoatom.

It was the culmination of a fevered few weeks in Ukraine after the country’s anti-corruption bureau (NABU) had dramatically exposed a US$100 million scandal involving justice and energy ministers, a pro-Russian defector who received at least US$2 million, and people in Zelensky’s inner circle, notably Timur Mindich, a former business partner of the president and the alleged organizer of the scheme.

Pressure steadily built on Yermak, whom critics alleged had taken advantage of martial law to oversee an unprecedented centralization of power in the president’s office, emerging as the arbiter of key appointments and decisions in the country. His prominent position became his undoing – in a scandal that reached so high in Ukraine’s political circles, it was inevitable his name would appear, although he himself has not been formally charged.

Operation Midas and Yermak’s resignation have been interpreted as a victory for anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine that had come under threat after a July 2025 law had stripped NABU and the special prosecutor’s office of their independence – a move allegedly motivated by the fact NABU was closing in on people close to the president. After massive protests, the measure was reversed a week later.

But amid the sense of justice being served, only a battle has been won, not the war. Yermak may be gone but he was not the first such figure in Ukraine – and may not be the last.

For decades, governance in Ukraine has been subject to the warping influence of a shadow system of informal decision-making, where deals are made behind closed doors and loyalty is prized over principle.

The president’s office (or president’s administration, as it was formerly called) has traditionally been the vehicle for such efforts dating back to Viktor Medvechuk, the former leader of Ukraine’s main pro-Russian political party, who became arguably the first ‘grey cardinal’ of the office under Ukraine’s second president, Leonid Kuchma. Over the years, the system has suffered blows, especially during the Orange and Maidan revolutions in 2004 and 2014, respectively, but it has always survived. Former president Viktor Yanukovych, defeated in 2004, bounced back in 2010 and set about dramatically increasing presidential authority until he was ousted in 2014.

The period of reform and decentralization that followed the Maidan Revolution seemed to give hope Ukraine was on the right track, but the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022 presented the ideal opportunity to concentrate power in the presidency and president’s office. In the early days of the war, this had popular support – Zelensky and the president’s office were praised for not fleeing the country in its hour of need – but as time passed, disquiet about the influence of the office grew.

Almost four years later and Yermak has departed, but much of the system remains intact and functional, especially in the sphere of law enforcement, where key appointees have been linked to the president’s office. A report by Ukrainska Pravda in June 2023 highlighted the extent of connections between law enforcement agencies and figures within the president’s office.

As a result, several of Ukraine’s numerous law enforcement agencies have, to some degree, become tools in the service of hidden interests, alongside their mandates to fight crime. Operation Midas has provided several such examples, as in July 2025 when the security service of Ukraine arrested a NABU detective who was investigating corruption at Energoatom. He was charged with collaborating with Russia and overseeing drug trafficking to Russia. (After Yermak’s resignation, the NABU detective was released although the case remains active.) And before the details of Midas came to light, Volodymyr Kudrytsky, the former head of Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s state-owned national power company, was arrested on suspicion of fraud, although he and others claimed the case was politically motivated and designed to shift attention away from the government. The case against him is ongoing.

But this informal management of law enforcement has more profound structural consequences. Not only does it hamper the fight against organized crime and insulate the system from outside scrutiny, but also enables the establishment of patronage networks that effectively control and profit from illicit activity. Since 2022, GI-TOC research has documented the extent of connections between organized crime and certain actors and branches of the state in Transcarpathia, Odesa and Dnipro. This research has uncovered the extent to which serious criminal activity in Ukraine is impossible without the state’s sanction, and even management. As one law enforcement official reflected, ‘Our government is a mix of the Soviet past and criminal ways.’

This situation has profound implications for Ukraine’s future. The reform of law enforcement and the judicial system is a key part of the clusters of EU accession, for example, but despite many pledges of intent, there is little real progress at present (although the strictures of war are admittedly a complicating factor for agencies such as the security service). It may also be an impediment to Ukraine’s reconstruction efforts. Foreign investment relies on clear rules and a climate of trust. If corrupt actors continue to benefit from connections to the executive and a suborned judiciary – and bleed off funds as a result – investors may seek other, less risky opportunities.

Operation Midas has shown that shadow politics is a critical issue for Ukraine: gross self-enrichment by elites does not go down well when citizens are dying on the front lines or struggling to stay warm in winter. Although at war, it is critical that Ukraine now doubles down on improving transparency and accountability in the higher echelons of government.

It is also essential that Western partners de-stigmatize the fight against corruption. The international community needs to reward and encourage genuine Ukrainian efforts to expose and remove corruption, and build the institutional capacity to prevent it systemically.

Yermak’s resignation is a step in the right direction in that regard, but unless it is accompanied by a genuine cultural shift within and outside Ukraine, the system will simply replace the fallen, and the battle against hidden interests will have to be fought again and again.