Lawfare Daily: Corruption, Coverups, and Crisis in Domestic Ukrainian Politics

[Intro]

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Danylo Mokryk: She apparently knows about him and about his role in this whole process, and this leads strongly to believe that while President Zelensky was, was at least through his bodyguard implicated in, in all of this.

Anastasiia Lapatina: It's the Lawfare Podcast. My name is Anastasiia Lapatina, Ukraine fellow at Lawfare, with Danylo Mokryk, a war crimes investigator at The Kyiv Independent and the author of a blog about domestic Ukrainian politics, Mokryk.

Danylo Mokryk: You know, when, when, when it comes to Ukraine, Ukraine's interests in the state of war as a country, he is doing a decent job about it, and we don't know that someone would do it better if he was removed. Okay? We know that there would be instability, but when it comes to internal Ukrainian politics, well, Zelensky is very problematic.

Anastasiia Lapatina: We spoke about the latest corruption saga engulfing the Ukrainian government and why despite so many arrows pointing towards Zelensky personally, no one is calling for his removal. We are recording this conversation on Thursday, May 14th, and something quite extraordinary happened today. The former chief of staff to President Volodymyr Zelensky, the once notoriously powerful Andriy Yermak, was taken into custody after being charged with money laundering, and those charges come almost six months after Ukraine's Anticorruption Bureau first searched Yermak's home back in November.

And back then, the bureau, which we in Ukraine call NABU, announced that it uncovered a large corruption scheme, mainly in Ukraine's energy sector, and those revelations became an enormous scandal in Ukraine because the scheme implicated senior government officials, including associates of the president, and Yermak was actually forced to resign as a result of that scandal.

And so we're gonna talk about all of this today about the corruption scandal, its recent developments, and also about the overall political environment in Ukraine. But I wanna start us off with the beginning of all of this saga back in November. So Danylo, could you just remind us what was the substance of that initial Anticorruption Bureau's case, and why was it such a huge deal in Ukraine?

So much so that, you know, this case is being called the biggest in Ukraine really in decades.

Danylo Mokryk: Well, let me start by saying still that all of this is unprecedented for Ukraine. We are talking about the three people, the closest people to, to the President Zelensky. He's not only his political allies, but his friends, his close friends that are being charged with corruption.

We are talking about Andriy Yermak that you mentioned, about Timur Mindich, and about Oleksiy Chernyshov. This is important because this means that it is possible in Ukraine for the closest people, the most powerful people in Ukraine, to be charged with corruption, and they are not protected from spending time in jail as, as Andriy Yermak is set to spend at least this night in jail 'cause no bail has been provided yet for him.

It all definitely started last year, last November. Well, officially it started last November when the National Anticorruption Bureau, they announced that they uncovered a large scale corruption in Ukrainian energy sector. And this scheme large scale scheme was apparently led by Timur Mindich, one of the president's closest friends, the person that provided...

They celebrated their birthdays together, okay okay. In 2021, President Zelensky celebrated his birthday at Timur Mindich's, Mindich's apartment. He was his business associate in Kvartal 95 which is the, the, the, the comedy production enterprise that Zelensky headed before before becoming president.

Already this was a shock, and it did send shock waves through the whole Ukraine, Ukrainian political sphere. And it ultimately led, and quite quickly to dismissal from office of Andriy Yermak who for six years seemed all powerful, almighty, and actually was dubbed vice president by all Ukrainian political journalists.

So this is when it all started, but we started hearing rumors about Timur Mindich's apartment being wired and listened to by the National Anticorruption Bureau way before like in summer I guess, or even in spring. We started getting rumors, well, that he was listened to, and that there were a lot of tapes proving that President Zelensky's closest people were implicated in large scale corruption.

Anastasiia Lapatina: And the corruption we're talking about, it's not extremely relevant to our conversation today, but I'll just mention it for the listeners who maybe haven't followed it super closely. It's about this scheme related to a state-owned company that controls all of Ukraine's nuclear energy plants. And according to NABU, this criminal group of which Mindich, Zelenskyy's business partner, was sort of the ringleader, the, the leader of this group.

They instituted this system of kickbacks where any company that was providing any, right, services to Energoatom, to the state-owned company, had to pay, like, an extra 10 or 15 or 20%, right. Or risk losing the supplier status, which, correct me if I'm wrong, Danylo, but it's kind of a very common sort of type of corruption system, scheme.

Danylo Mokryk: Yes. It's, it's a very common system at state-owned companies in Ukraine. Yes.

Anastasiia Lapatina: So that was the nature of the case, right?

Danylo Mokryk: I am not very familiar with how corruption in different sectors work let's say in the EU countries or in the U.S. You know, I get some some investigations here and there, but I, I don't know what's really typical in other countries.

But in Ukraine, this, what you described and what, what thr National Anticorruption Bureau uncovered in this case, is really really typical. Like, those kickbacks from from, from state companies, from state-owned companies, is something that you... I- it's maybe it's the main type of corruption that you, that you get in Ukraine.

Anastasiia Lapatina: And Mindich is not, he doesn't hold any sort of political office, right? He's just a private citizen who has all of this access allegedly through his friendship with Zelenskyy, right?

Danylo Mokryk: Exactly. And that is one of the most striking things about this whole scheme, that Timur Mindich he, he, he, he certainly does not hold any official position.

All the influence he has is actually provided by his close relationship with President Zelenskyy. Like, officially, he's more or less no one.

Anastasiia Lapatina: And he wasn't even very well known before all of this, right? Like, I- Like, no, no, I've heard of him for the first time maybe a few months before NABU's investigation. Like, he wasn't a very popular figure, right?

Danylo Mokryk: He wasn't. One of the, the, the key investigative reporters in, in, in this story Mykhailo Tkach started talking about Mindich exactly in 2021 when this whole story about Zelenskyy celebrating his birthday at Timur Mindich's was published. But before that, I do not believe that I heard about him either.

And, I think that when this name appeared for the first time in 2021, I did not even, like, you know, pay a lot of attention to it. Okay, it's his business friend. Okay, it's his business associate. Okay, it's his close friend. So what? You know. It's only, well, now that we learn about the influences, the different influences of this person because his, his in- he talked, he met with ministers.

It's not that he gave orders to those ministers, but he gave them advice. He helped them to resolve different issues also related to some degree to this scheme with President Zelensky. On one of the tapes he actually messages Zelensky during his conversation with then minister of energy sector Herman Halushchenko, and reads his response, Volodymyr Zelensky's response.

So, yeah, this is how it worked. And at one point, he also says that president's chief bodyguard, Maxim Donets, a figure quite popular on TikTok, was about to, to, to come to meet him. So obviously this leads us to think that the bodyguard was running some errands for President Zelensky too. He was meeting with Medvedchuk on behalf of President Zelensky.

Anastasiia Lapatina: We're gonna get to that, definitely. I have several questions. Mm-hmm. I think that may be the most important part of our podcast episode today. But I wanted to ask about Yermak. You mentioned, of course, that he was let go as the, as, as a result of, of these revelations back in November. But why was he forced out if legally back in November he wasn't yet implicated, right?

So NABU searched his home, and he was let go, you, you know, almost immediately after the searches. But why was there this pressure on Zelensky to let go of Yermak if his name didn't, if he himself wasn't charged with any crime yet?

Danylo Mokryk: Well, because the way the Ukrainian politics work, for, for the whole of of, of, of Zelensky's term in general such a large scale scheme would not be possible without at least sanctions from the president's office and from the head of the president's office.

Andriy Yermak was Zelensky's main manager. He was charged actually with appointing all of the main officials in Ukraine, including the heads of state companies, state-owned companies. He was controlling the, the, the Basically the whole state sector. So it was not possible for such a scheme logically, naturally to exist without Yermak at least knowing about it and allowing it.

And it was so, so obvious that even a lot of members of parliament from Zelensky's own party were privately calling for Yermak's dismissal. And the pressure, the political pressure started to, to, to, to grow so quickly and became so intense that it was impossible for Zelensky to, to hold on to Yermak.

Although it is very typical of Zelensky to try to protect his own, his pack, as long as he can. Okay? This is something that he does, that he always did. And I think that he just did that because he could not try to protect Yermak any longer. It is very common in Ukraine to fire officials, top officials before they get charged with a crime.

Okay? This is something that we, that, that we see all the time. For some reason, they think, the government thinks, Zelensky thinks that if an ex-minister is being charged, it is not as grave as an acting minister being charged. In his mind, in their minds, an ex-head of presidential office being charged is somehow less shocking than an actual acting head of president's office being charged.

Anastasiia Lapatina: So let's talk about Yermak's charges. He was charged with money laundering, and basically the charges as, are, that he was laundering millions of dollars, I think it's, it's nearly $4 million, to build-

Danylo Mokryk: Yeah

Anastasiia Lapatina: -this luxury compound kind of thing near Kyiv. So can you just explain the nature of the charges?

Danylo Mokryk: So the story is, the main story here is about four houses a comp- a compound of four houses being built near Kyiv. And it is assumed that those houses should belong to President Zelenskyy, Andriy Yermak, Oleksiy Chernyshov, and Timur Mindich. They should, the four of them are supposed to be neighbors in, in, in that sense.

Anastasiia Lapatina: And you say assumed  because there was, there was a number of media investigations by your colleagues.

Danylo Mokryk: Yes, there was that, alleging that And, well, it, it, it kind of, it kind of transpires from all those tapes that we heard from, from the official tapes published by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, but also by some parts of those tapes leaked to to investigative journalists that seem to be, like, true and real tapes.

Okay? They, they are, they, they do check out with with the rest of them. So, Yermak is not being charged with being part of the corruption scheme himself. So he's not being charged with let's say, stealing money or getting bribes. He is charged with being one of the facilitators that allowed laundering of that corrupt money in the process of building of those four houses, of his house.

This is, this is basically the story. He's charged with m- m- money laundering not with you know, with the original crime, but with the follow-up crime, let's say.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Right. But the, the, the money that he is allegedly, he was allegedly helping to launder, at least a portion of that has probably come from state-owned-

Danylo Mokryk: Most of that

Anastasiia Lapatina: companies. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So it's, you know, stealing, basically stealing taxpayers' money.

Danylo Mokryk: Yeah, but the he is not being charged with that. He's not being charged with stealing. He's charged- You're right. You're right ... with money laundering. Yeah. This is important because, you know, there is, there are things that the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the, the, the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office believe that they can prove, and they lead with that So, they are not- Right

charging them with something that they think may fall apart in a court of law. They think that this part of their investigation is solid, so they lead with that. They focus on that.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Right. So it's not that they're saying he wasn't stealing the money. Yeah, yeah. They're saying, "Right now we can't prove that he was-" Yeah "and this is what we can prove." They say, they are saying, "We can prove this."

Danylo Mokryk: Right. "And this is enough." Okay.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yeah. So the four houses that you mentioned, they're known in Ukraine as the Dynasty Cooperative. Right. And th- that's also the official name, allegedly, according to, you know, the information released by NABU.

So these four friends, Timur Mindich, President Zelensky, Oleksiy Chernyshov, who is a close family friend of Zelensky's, and also Ukraine's former deputy prime minister, one of the highest ranking officials in the country, and Andriy Yermak. So those four people, allegedly, according to NABU and according to the investigations, were building these four homes.

Danylo Mokryk: Let me point out that they, they do not say that President Zelensky is implicated.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Right. You're right. They actually can't say that. Actually, they say, they, yeah, they, they actually say that he is not being investigated, and this is, like, legally right.

Danylo Mokryk: Yes. Because in Ukraine, the president has immunity from criminal investigations, so he cannot-

Anastasiia Lapatina: Which is standard practice

Danylo Mokryk: be investigated. Yeah. He cannot-

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yeah

Danylo Mokryk: be investigated.

Anastasiia Lapatina: So NABU doesn't actually have jurisdiction over a sitting president, yeah.

Danylo Mokryk: Right. So they are not saying that he is not part of the scheme. They are saying, "We are not investigating him," and this is, like, very important to understand the dis- distinction between the two

Anastasiia Lapatina: Right. So this leads into my next question, which is, you know, the obvious question coming out of this, you know, all these recent developments is, well, was President Zelensky aware of all of this, or also is he, is he taking part in all of this? And I think, as you already alluded to, you know, there are kind of several ways of answering that.

Right. So on one, you know, from one side you can say legally, you know, Zelensky has not and cannot be implicated because he has presidential immunity and because NABU doesn't have jurisdiction over him. So, you know, they just cannot investigate any of his actions right now. But there is another way of looking at that, which is that there has been reporting, pretty strong reporting, suggesting that Zelensky was in fact involved in these schemes.

Right. And I'm talking about this kind of astonishing leak that happened several weeks ago where a bunch of previously undisclosed case files, files from this exact investigation-

Danylo Mokryk: Right

Anastasiia Lapatina: -were leaked to a, a top Ukrainian media outlet, Ukrayinska Pravda, and also several opposition lawmakers. And so the files were the transcripts of the conversations that NABU wiretapped between Mindich and a bunch of his associates.

So basically journalists got hold of, like, hundreds of pages of these transcribed conversations and started publishing them. And so there is a part of those conversations that mentions somebody named Vova, which is a diminutive- Which is short for, for Volodymyr for Volodymyr which is basically what, what President Zelensky goes by among friends and family.

And so can you just explain the context in which this mysterious Vova is, is evoked in the conversations? So, yeah. And what do you make of it?

Danylo Mokryk: So Vova is mentioned a few time as one of the owners. Or as the owner of one of the houses in this dynasty compound on those tapes. And there is another episode that, well, leads us to strongly suspect that he was well implicated, that the president was implicated in in that scheme.

At one point, Timur Mindich meets a a woman named Natalia. She was mentioned and her identity was uncovered in the recent court proceedings against Andrii Yermak already. So she was charged with you know, the construction and design of those houses. And when Mindich meets her and starts talking to her about freezing actually the construction because of some problems that they encounter, he says, "Well, at 1:00 PM, Maksym Donets will come."

Maksym Donets is the chief bodyguard of Volodymyr Zelensky. And what is important here is that he does not explain to this woman charged, again, with the, with the, the construction and design of those houses. He does not explain who that is, and he does not explain why he'd come, and she does not ask those questions either.

So she apparently knows about him and about his role in this whole process, and this leads strongly to believe that, well, President Zelensky was, was at least through his bodyguard implicated in, in all of this. Maksym Donets is, is the same famous bodyguard that you can see near Zelensky almost every time that he, you know, goes to to any public place.

So it is someone who is very close to Zelensky as well. And it's hard to imagine, you know, him having free time at 1:00 PM during a workday just to meet for his own personal reason with Timur Mindich or the, the aforementioned Natalia. So this is, this is something that, that, you know, makes me conclude that, well, they. President Zelensky was at, at least, at least it was all coordinated with him.

Anastasiia Lapatina: It's worth mentioning that when NABU charged Yermak just a few days ago, they released a video in their kind of typical, as of recently, NABU Netflix type fashion, ma- making their case and presenting some of their evidence about the charges against Yermak.

And so they released some of those wiretapped conversations that perfectly match the leaked transcripts suggesting that they are in fact authentic. Yes. And so that means that at this point we have, you know, several investigations done by credible Ukrainian investigative journalists alleging that the four houses are for these four men, including Zelensky.

We have these recent leaks where a certain Vova is evoked. I mean, we should probably say there is not really another top senior official in that circle also named Volodymyr. I cannot think of one. There is not some other obvious Vova that you could point to. Right. And so at that point, what I find really striking is that Zelensky actually hasn't said a word about any of this.

Danylo Mokryk: Yeah.

Anastasiia Lapatina: He hasn't, he hasn't actually denied any of it. He hasn't scapegoated some other Vova. He hasn't said that the leaks are, you know, are fake. Like, he's just pretending like this isn't happening. Why do you think that is?

Danylo Mokryk: That's also very typical of, of Ukrainian presidents in general.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Okay.

Danylo Mokryk: Like, every time, every time something really, really bad happens that could affect them, they just try to play dead, you know?

That, that happened to, that was the very characteristic, very characteristic of Petro Poroshenko before, of Volodymyr Zelensky. It was very much characteristic of Viktor Yanukovych, and well, to, to the predecessors too. So this is, this is some kind of, you know, usual tactic, a usual PR tactic adopted by by Ukrainian presidents.

Just say nothing. This seems to be very, very misguided actually because they, they do not control the narrative. They do not try to control the narrative. They hope that it would just all, you know, pass And it never does. It almost never does. So they inst- instead of trying to have a word in the narrative, they just let it all flow as it does and well, it never leads to good results for them.

But they keep repeating the same mistake. But then again President Zelensky tried last year to, to influence the investigation by initiating actually the, the, the, the law weakening the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the special and Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office. The people of Ukraine gathered to protest against that, and those were the, the, the, the most massive protests that we had in Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

Anastasiia Lapatina: And I mean, also the first, right? The, the, the... Also, those were also the first protests that, that we've had since 2022. The first big protests that we had.

Danylo Mokryk: Yeah, the first, he first big.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Countrywide protests. Is it your understanding that that was in reaction to him getting wind of this investigation?

Danylo Mokryk: Well, obviously. Like, there's no wa- there's no way it could be caused by anything else. Already at that time, rumors about his closest friends being investigated were leaking to the Ukrainian media, and it was quite widely talked about. So, the reason for this attempt was quite obvious. But he did back down after after those protests.

It wa- it was basically a slap on the wrist for him, and he retreated which is a good thing. It means that he still, you know, has this instinct of, of sensing the danger, of knowing where, where the limits are self-preservation, in a way. You know? Yeah, yeah. So that's what, that, that's, that's what he did.

But the director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the head of the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, when they presented the case against Andriy Yermak, they started their briefing by thanking the Ukrainian people for what they did last summer, saying that this would all be impossible if those protests didn't happen.

I think that this is something that we have to, to, to keep in mind, that the Ukrainian people, even in the circumstances that we are in now, they keep fighting for democracy, they keep fighting for justice, and they keep fighting for checks and balances in, in the system of, of Ukrainian government. And this is something that I think has to be like, always pointed out and always applauded, actually.

Anastasiia Lapatina: I agree with you, but I do wanna ask about the public's reaction to these most recent revelations. About not even Yermak's charging, but, but about the mention of this mysterious Volva. So I found it a bit surprising that, you know, it seemed to me like neither the civil society's reaction nor, let's say, the Parliament's reaction has been particularly strong.

Like, the phrase that comes to mind is, like, shocking but not surprising. Like, n- you know, for example, nobody has called for, you know, any sort of removal of Zelensky or, you know, an impeachment, which is what you would expect in normal times.

Danylo Mokryk: Yeah, but we are not in normal times, so expecting something like that right now is-.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Well, how, how would you see it? My question is, how do you see it? Because let's say, you know, if I'm a random American looking at this whole situation, I'm guessing that I would see a president in a massive corruption scandal basically getting away with no accountability.

And, you know, there, there are no countrywide protests right now. You know, people are making various comments about how this is a really bad thing, but there is no actual mechanism for doing anything about it at this moment. And so, like how do you think through that? But what, what would you wanna do about it?

Danylo Mokryk:  I mean, if you try in any way to remove Zelensky from office right now, the danger for, for, for the Ukrainian state is existential. I mean, we are we are still fighting for this country's survival, and it is crucial to have at least basic government stability. Well, Zelensky's removal would be maybe just but it also, it also would weaken Ukrainian state to a degree that would make it very vulnerable to attacks, to Russian attacks against it, both military and political.

So, you know, Zelensky, we are now, we are, we are now about to celebrate seven years of, of Zelensky in office, and I remember his debate his presidential debate with Petro Poroshenko in 2019 when he actually said that we have two Poroshenkos. One of them being patriotic, defending Ukraine on international stage, and another one being corrupt.

And this is something we can easily say about Zelenskyy right now. So he, he, he is, he is a double-faced president right now. When it comes to defending Ukraine on the international level, he does that quite well. So, you know, when, when, when it comes to Ukraine, Ukraine's interests in the state of war as a country, he is doing a decent job about it, and we don't know that someone would do it better if he was removed.

Okay? We know that there would be instability. But when it comes to internal Ukrainian politics, well, Zelenskyy is very problematic, and we have to always find a middle way between punishing Zelenskyy between responding to to the different, well, problematic decision, bad things that he does. But also, on the other hand, between, you know, like supporting him when it comes to Ukrainian national interests.

So it's, it's, it's a, it's a tough game to play for, for Ukrainian people right now. But all in all, I think, well, they do a decent job about it.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yeah, I should also probably mention that and I've, I've written about this for Lawfare, but Ukraine cannot hold elections during wartime, even though there has been, you know, some discussions about this in the American media and, you know, journalists asking Trump his thoughts about it.

The, the reality is that the, you know, because of safety concerns and, you know, a variety of other issues, including legal issues, Ukraine cannot hold elections during wartime. It's explicitly prohibited under martial law, which is what's in effect right now. And so that's of course why the most obvious accountability mechanism of voting the president out of office isn't available.

Danylo Mokryk: Well, yeah. And there is, you know, this discussion about President Zelenskyy legitimacy, and I've talked about it to, to, like, a dozen of constitutional lawyers and former judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and actual serving judges of the Constitutional Court. And almost all of them, except two, said that, well, he is legitimate.

I mean, if there's no way to hold elections right now he is legitimate, and he will be until the martial law is, is, is, is over. Those two others that had a different opinion on it they do have their arguments but they also have their own personal reasons to dislike Zelenskyy, so, I have to put a bit of that a bit of their opinion on that account.

But the, the legal argument of those others who say that Zelenskyy is legitimate, they are quite compelling and I will not enter into details, but it, it, it does seem solid. So, I don't think we should have any discussion about that. None of Ukrainians will generally are happy with Zelenskyy being, you know, a president with an unlimited term.

But then again no Ukrainian is happy with this war being unlimited and have an unlimited term. This is the problem. We are, in a way, stuck with what we have, both for the Ukrainian legal system and, and, and justice system and, and for the civil society. The, the, the main goal is actually to minimize the damage, you know, and trying to, to, to limit any corruption as much as it can be done in this situation.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Right, which is, which is why I think it's worth explicitly mentioning that no one of any significance has called, as I've said, for Zelensky's removal. Even he, you know, his biggest critics, like people in the opposition in, in parliament. No, it's not, it's not, like, there is no appetite for his removal.

Danylo Mokryk: Because we understand the dang- the danger that comes with it, you know?

Anastasiia Lapatina: Right. And the polls show that the vast majority of the country doesn't support holding elections during war. Mm-hmm. And also, despite all of the scandals that we've discussed, he's actually surprisingly popular. Like, his rating right now is, he is around 60%, which is kind of crazy if you compare it to, you know, the ratings of the American or leader or a bunch of other European leaders. And it, it stayed actually surprisingly high at around 60% on average since 2022. Yeah.

Danylo Mokryk: But the level of unpopularity is also quite high, and higher than, than, than any other Ukrainian political figure has.

So, it is-

Anastasiia Lapatina: What do you mean?

Danylo Mokryk: Unpopularity, like I do not trust him. The answer I do not trust Zelen- Zelensky is around 40%, and it's higher than, than, than any other Ukrainian political figure has. I mean, acting important political figure. So, you also have to keep that in mind, that if we are talking about that, if you are thinking about that in electoral terms, this is an obstacle that would be quite hard for him to overcome when it comes to when it comes to elections.

So his popularity is, well, limited too. But yeah, the choice here is basically we understand, well, we the Ukrainian people, we understand that the destiny of the country is more important than the political destiny of Zelensky. So as long as he does his job as the defender of the country on the international level decently, there would be no calls for him to, to, to step down.

If, if we see that, if Ukrainians see that, well, he becomes problematic in that way too, they would maybe call for, for him to step down. Yeah, it's, it's, as I said, it's a very complicated game for, for the people, for the nation to play.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Especially for a nation that has had so many revolutions, and where the civil society in general is very active. You've mentioned that Zelenskyy is kind of a double-faced president that, you know, he... I, I think he's kind of a man of contrasts, right? Like, on the other on the, on one hand, he's this, you know, Churchill of our times, the defender of Ukraine, you know, this very popular abroad narrative.

But then when it comes to his actual governing at home, the situation is very different. Could you talk a bit more about what kind of president is he? Like, what is his relationship with the cabinet, with the parliament? How would you describe the Ukrainian government as a whole to someone who doesn't really understand the domestic political situation?

Danylo Mokryk: Well, Zelenskyy doesn't care too much about what is written in the Ukrainian Constitution. Like, he thinks that he can do as he likes and pleases. For example, last year when the prime minister of Ukraine that we have now, Denys Shmyhal, was appointed, she should... The, the, the candidate for the prime minister should actually be chosen and suggested by the Ukrainian parliament, and the Ukrainian parliament should actually come to the person and say, "Well, we want you to be the prime minister."

This is how it's written in the Ukrainian Constitution. But it was President Zelenskyy who publicly announced that he suggested for Denys Shmyhal to become prime minister without any decision by the Ukrainian parliament. So this is, like, grossly unconstitutional, but he doesn't care. And, and not only he doesn't care, he wants to publicly He wants to be seen as the main decision maker in Ukraine, so that's why he doesn't, you know, shy away from announcing such a thing publicly.

He actually wants it to be announced publicly. He, he couldn't care less about what, you know, parliament wants, about what the, the, the ministers want. He, he is the one in charge. This is the kind of a leader that he is domestically. He also dislikes independent journalists quite strongly. Like, you can, you can sense it every time that he, he, he, he faces a critical question during a press conference.

He becomes aggressive. He sees it as a personal attack. He snaps. He starts being rude to the journalist et cetera. And there have been attempts by the predi- presidential office to attack independent journalists personally or independent media outlets as institutions. Still today in twenty twenty-six I would say that the Ukrainian independent media are quite vibrant.

You can see a lot of independent investigations, including the investigations of corruption in the Ukrainian government and in President Zelenskyy's entourage. So he wants to be authoritarian. He strives to be authoritarian, but I would say that, you know, he lacks the systematic approach for that to be successful.

So he, he, he, he has all the urges of an authoritarian leader, but he lacks the vision, you know, to, to, to make it a s- a real system. Or, but also, a- and it's also important, he always gets, you know, a pushback from, from Ukrainian public, from Ukrainian civil society, and, and from Ukrainian media. So Ukrainians never actually just let that happen.

To digress a bit, I, I had a discussion with a colleague of mine in 20- 2012. It was during the, the, the, it, it was the best times of President Yanukovych, who was really very pro-Russian l- president and really trying to, to limit any kind of freedom that Ukrainians had. And we had, with, with, with this colleague of mine, we had this discussion if there could be another, another Belarus in Ukraine established by Yanukovych.

And we talked about that a bit, and he thought for a while and he said, "Well, you know, no, I don't think that a second Belarus is possible in Ukraine because Ukrainians are just too crazy for that." And I think it, this is how it works. You mentioned the revolutions that we had. Like, Ukrainians never allow authoritarian dreams of presidents to go too far, you know?

And that's why we never had, we all, all, only once we had a president that served two terms. We had six presidents, and only one of them served two terms, and two of them actually never even finished their legal term of five years. So, yeah, that's the kind of people Ukrainians are.

Anastasiia Lapatina: So what do you think could happen after the war ends and if, you know, when there is the next presidential election? Do you have your gut feelings about what that could look like and the future of Zelenskyy?

Danylo Mokryk: No. Well, it's, it's hard for me to say. Like, when it comes to setting a d- a date, a deadline you know, it is said that it was said in, in those court proceedings against Andriy Yermak that he consulted all those clairvoyants and, and you know-

Anastasiia Lapatina: The, the astrologists, yeah

Danylo Mokryk: magic people. I do not do that. Fortune tellers. And I cannot... Yeah, fortune tellers. And I, I do not do that, so, I couldn't tell you. But as of right now, it seems like there is no choice for the National Anti-Corruption Bureau not to ultimately implicate President Zelenskyy or Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the investigation.

And once he stops being president and loses his immunity, logically he could be charged too. Like, it, it, it, it could happen exactly at the time of inauguration of the next president. But then again, this is, this is something I'm thinking about right now. We don't know how much time will pass before any of this becomes possible.

So we just have to see how the situation develops. We, we have to see how the case against Andriy Yermak holds in a court of law because, again, the Ukrainian high anti-corruption court is not, like, somewhere you enter and you lose all hope. You can win, and there's been several several not guilty verdicts, and it can happen to to Andriy Yermak.

So let's see how that develops. But most importantly, let's see how the war develops. I mean, s- the, the Ukrainian statehood is still at stake. If Ukraine loses that, like, no political fate of no political figure will matter.

Anastasiia Lapatina: On that note, Danylo, thank you so much for coming on. It was a pleasure speaking with you.

Danylo Mokryk: Thank you for having me.

[Outro]

Anastasiia Lapatina: The Lawfare Podcast is produced by the Lawfare Institute. If you want to support the show and listen ad-free, you can become a Lawfare material supporter at lawfaremedia.org/support. Supporters also get access to special events and other bonus content we don't share anywhere else.

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