JRL NEWSWATCH: “Why President Zelensky Is Purging His Inner Circle” – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Konstantin Skorkin
“Zelensky and Yermak find themselves tied to one another and somewhat interdependent: the former on the staffing policy of his head of administration, the latter on the political survival of his patron.”
“… Zelensky is continuing his large-scale purge of the Ukrainian leadership in an attempt to achieve greater cohesion and efficiency … [while] preparing for a double crisis in which increasing pressure from Russian troops at the front could add to internal destabilization after Zelensky’s presidential term formally expires … May 20. … [R]emoving his old friends from [his old TV production company] Kvartal 95 … Zelensky is surrounding himself with the creatures of his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak … leav[ing] the president without … alternative opinions ….[and] rais[ing] questions about how stable the tandem — increasingly skewed in favor of Yermak — will be …. [T]he dismissal of … commander-in-chief [Gen.] Valery Zaluzhny … mark[ed] the start of purges and reshuffles …. [that also have included the dismissal of] Oleksiy Danilov, … secretary of the National Security and Defense Council … [Zelensky] was unhappy with Danilov’s outspoken response to comments by China …. Kyiv hopes to convince Beijing to take part in an upcoming peace summit ….
[N]early all of Zelensky’s … Kvartal 95 [associates… have been removed. … Ivan Bakanov and Serhiy Shefir, were made head of the … SBU [] and first assistant to the president, respectively … Serhiy Trofimov became the first deputy head of the president’s office. … Bakanov was fired from the SBU back in 2022 …. Trofimov and Shefir lost their jobs in the recent purge. … [V]acant posts have been filled by [Yermak] nominees …. [and] Yermak’s own proteges … are apparently very difficult to fire. … With no sign of the ongoing purge stopping … many are questioning the unprecedented trust that the president appears to have in his chief of staff. … Yermak has been accused of being everything from an MI6 handler to a Kremlin agent. …”