Andrey Ermak: head of the Office and “nanny” of the President of Ukraine

Andriy Ermak – Second after Zelensky or first before him? Sergei Shilov is interested in an article for Klymenko.Time

The Administration of the President of Ukraine was created in December 1991 on the basis of the Law “On the President of the Ukrainian SSR” (dated July 5, 1991), according to which the head of the state “may create the necessary management and advisory structures.” Almost thirty years have passed since then, the presidential administration has changed its name three times and its leadership seventeen times, but it has still not received firm legal status either in the Constitution or in the form of a special law! For example, the current Office of the President of Ukraine (OPU) exists and operates only on the basis Zelensky’s Decree dated June 25, 2019.

But, despite their “semi-official” status, the administrations of Ukrainian presidents periodically concentrated so much real power that, in fact, they became another branch of it. This happened when a very strong figure with great influence and capabilities became the head of the administration. For Kuchma it was Tabachnik and Medvedchuk, for Yushchenko it was Balogh, and for Zelensky it was the current head of the OPU Andriy Yermak. However, Ermak’s strength lies mainly in Zelensky’s weakness, which allows him to manipulate himself.

He follows the president around like a nanny for an unreasonable child. Ermak can be seen in almost all of Zelensky’s photos and videos taken over the past year and a half. Being at the right hand or behind the president’s back, he takes part in all his meetings and events. Sometimes Ermak makes independent decisions, as if he considers himself a vice president, which caused negative reaction from the West. And sometimes it seems as if he is the real head of the state, ruling it on behalf of the restless president. Such a majordomo Pepin under King Childeric, or Boris Godunov under Fyodor Ivanovich…

Andrey Ermak: Afghan past

Andrey Borisovich Ermak was born on November 21, 1971 in Kyiv, and his younger brother Denis was born there in 1979. Their mother, Maria Alexandrovna, originally from Leningrad, worked in Kyiv as a specialist at the Khimvolokno plant. And their father Boris Mikhailovich Ermak, who graduated from the Faculty of Radio Electronics of the KPI, was first an engineer at the plant named after. Artem, which produced guided aircraft missiles. In the 80s, Boris Ermak moved to a leadership position at the Ukrainian SSR State Committee for Vocational Education. And then he received a deployment to Afghanistan (DRA).

High-level Soviet specialists often came to the DRA with their families. Therefore, since 1986, Denis Ermak lived with his father in Kabul, where he studied at a school at the Soviet embassy. Such an adventurous childhood left its mark on his character. But his older brother Andrey remained in Kyiv, where he went to school in Troyeshchyna.

According to the official legend, Boris Ermak worked at the Soviet embassy in Kabul, where he allegedly “oversaw vocational education” in the DRA. But, judging by the photo from the family album, Boris Ermak most likely served somewhere at a military base. And perhaps he supervised not the training of young Afghan welders and turners, but the “run-in” of the same aircraft missiles produced at the plant named after. Artem. However, even without this, Boris Ermak’s work at the Soviet embassy itself is a reason for accusations of his involvement in the KGB and GRU. And now he is constantly reminded of his close ties in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), the roots of which go back to the Afghan past.

Russian connections of the Ermakov family

In 1989, the USSR withdrew its troops from the DRA, but left its embassy there. With the departure of the last military convoy from Kabul, Boris Ermak’s services as a specialist in vocational education suddenly became unnecessary, but he remained as the head of the personnel department at the USSR trade mission. There he became friends with the translator Rakhim (Rakhamim) Emanuilov, who had worked in the same representative office since 1985.

Their friendship did not end after they fled from the Mujahideen advancing on Kabul in 1991 and dispersed to different republics of the collapsed Union. Having settled in Moscow, Emanuilov co-founded Interprombank in the mid-90s, made a name for himself as a specialist in the East, and in 2009 became an adviser to the chairman of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) on issues of interaction with Asian countries. It was suggested that Emanuilov was one of the protégés of another prominent orientalist, Yevgeny Primakov, a big shot in Soviet and Russian intelligence who also specialized in foreign economic relations. After the crisis of 1998, which completely undermined trust in liberal pro-Western politicians in the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism), Primakov was appointed prime minister and prepared the coming to power of the “FSB men” (Stepashin, then Putin (*criminal)).

But even without Primakov’s possible patronage, Emanuilov rose high thanks to his personal acquaintance with Ilgam Ragimov, a classmate of Vladimir Putin (*criminal)’s famous throughout Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), one of the richest and most influential people in the country. Emanuilov and Ragimov are fellow countrymen (both from Azerbaijan), and both are related to the Moscow community of Mountain Jews (a small ethnic group).

Boris Ermak claimed that he communicates with Emanuilov only at the level of New Year cards and correspondence on social networks. But this is not so, because their families have not only been friends for many years, but also run a joint business! Firstly, from 1999 until now, his son Andrei Ermak and Rakhim Emanuilov are partners in CJSC Interpromfinance Ukraine. Secondly, from 2001 until June 2018, the Ermakis were also Emanuilov’s partners in LLC “Media Group of European Partnership”. This connection is so obvious that Andrei Ermak had to justify himself to journalists, inventing an obvious absurdity that he only helped Emmanuilov register a company (receiving 10%) for this, which supposedly has not been generating any income for a long time (why wasn’t it closed?).

Thirdly, The media wrote that Andrei Ermak’s common-law wife is a relative Valeria Ponomareva – co-owner of Interprombank and member of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) from the Kamchatka Territory. whose daughter, Zoya Ponomareva, is the owner of a plot of land in Spain, on which one of the foreign “Putin (*criminal)’s dacha”

And allegedly, it was in this villa that one of Andrei Ermak’s personal meetings with Rudolph Giuliani took place, which resulted in Bankova’s refusal to support Trump in the Biden case – and, as a result, the loss of support for Zelensky by the previous White House administration. Then many wondered: why? Much was explained after the US elections, when new President Joe Biden turned out to be much more “pro-Russian” than Donald Trump.

Ermak the businessman

In 1990, Andrei Ermak entered the Kiev Institute of International Relations (KIMO). He entered on the second attempt, when he was already 18 years old. Obviously, the help of my father, a trade representative, was required not only to overcome the exam barrier, but also to obtain a deferment from the army. Already in his senior year, he participated in several business projects of fellow students, but then left them.

In 1997, Andrey Ermak established his first own company: LLC “International Legal Company”co-owned by his classmates Vasily Vashchenko and Mikhail Prikhodko. She became involved in intellectual property rights and corporate rights, starting with songwriters and film owners, whose interests (and dividends) the firm protected on Ukrainian television channels and radio stations. The work was not dusty: for example, Ermak was the first to agree with the studios “Disney” and “Universal” to monitor their property rights in Ukraine, and all he had to do was check with TV channels and cinemas for the availability of a distribution license for films.

But, apparently, the “fight against piracy” did not bring in enough money at that time, so Andrei Ermak, together with his father and brother, opened a number of other companies. In 1999 it was the aforementioned CJSC Interpromfinance-Ukraine. In 2001, Ermak and Emanuilov created its subsidiary security company Interpromfinance-Bezopasnost, whose director is the vice-president of the Association of State Security Veterans of Ukraine Nikolai Khudoley. In 2002, Ermak became a co-owner of Vison Ukraine Technologies LLC, and in 2004, International Pharmaceutical Group LLC, which, despite its name, is now engaged in… the operation of sports facilities! By the way, its co-owner is “servant of the people” Andrei Zadorozhny (No. 119 on the party list).

And also, from the words of Ermak himself, he also provided some consulting services to representatives of transnational pharmaceutical corporations, including Sanofi and Pfizer. Perhaps this is where the legs of that one grow political vaccine war, which Zelensky’s team staged at the end of 2020…

Ermak-producer

In 2012, Andrei Ermak, who had been defending the ownership rights to other people’s films for so many years, decided to make his own, trying himself as a producer. First, he founded Garnet International Media Group LLC, then Air Pi Eye and, in partnership with Belarusian Maxim Leshchenko, the AMA Vision company. But, unlike the creative producers of Hollywood (Scorsese, Lucas, Spielberg, Dino de Laurentiis), Ermak’s production was only legal and financial, and even then not at his own expense. His companies are firmly attached to the budgets of the Ministry of Culture and State Cinema, sucking out of them a total of more than 55 million hryvnia. It seems that this is what everything was started for!

Of course, on the one hand, this is wonderful – Ukrainian cinema lives on, it is being filmed! But on the other hand, what is the result of Andrei Ermak’s vigorous film activity? His only more or less successful project was only one Slovak-Ukrainian film “The Line” (2017), with which Ermak spent more than a year running around like a sack. But at the Ukrainian box office it collected only 1.3 million hryvnia – this despite the fact that Goskino allocated 7 million for it!

The comedy “Squat-23” actually failed at the box office, for which Goskino allocated 10 million hryvnia to Garnet Media (box office receipts – about 500 thousand). The Ukrainian-Slovak drama “Premonition”, which cost Goskino 13.6 million hryvnia, justified its box office failure only by quarantine – however, even film pirates were not interested in the film, and not at all out of fear of Ermak’s lawyers. But even the participation of Alexander Usik did not make the boxing drama “Rule of Combat” stand out: viewers noted that good actors and famous athletes played in a clumsy production. It seems that this is not the kind of cinema the Ukrainian audience needs!

At the end of 2018, AMA Vision received almost 25 million hryvnia from the Ministry of Culture for the filming of the film Shchedryk, conceived as a “patriotic drama” about the Ukrainian composer Leontovych. If we put aside the political and ideological tinsel, then as a historical film it promised to be interesting. However, for now the fate of the tape remains unknown…

Toxic dating

Among Andrei Ermak’s connections and acquaintances, there are those that are much more compromising (or, as they say now, toxic) than the “Russian trace.” A whole tangle of such connections is located in a hot spot known to the people of Kiev called “Sanahant”. Formally, this is just an expensive boutique of branded clothing plus a small restaurant, although from the outside you can’t tell – the complete absence of any flashy advertising is surprising. Which is completely logical, since this establishment is intended for the richest and most influential people in the capital, who come there not only to buy a new jacket with pockets or drink coffee. In fact, it has long been a kind of elite salon. It is there, according to the former head of the OPU Andriy Bogdan, that his former boss Andriy Ermak meets with former President Petro Poroshenko. As a reminder, he is the main official political opponent of Vladimir Zelensky.

But Ermak is not one of Sanahant’s clients, but its former vice president. At least according to reviews from former employeesto this institution, who wrote the following many years ago: “vice-president psychopath Ermak A.B. who manipulates everyone and doesn’t yell at you only in the first month of work, regardless of the department.” Ermak himself did not confirm his work at Sanakhant; according to him, he only provided legal services to the institution. However, why would former Sanahant employees invent lies in 2014 about Andrei Ermak, then unknown to anyone?

It is obvious that Ermak is distancing himself from Sanahant not only for the reason regular smuggling scandalsin which this vile establishment is mired, and about this he still remind me. Ermak’s most toxic connection at Sanakhant is his owner Oksana Hunt (hence his name), formerly known as Oksana Moroz, who received the nickname “Female Praying Mantis” from journalists for her very specific and risky lifestyle. She started back in the Ukrainian SSR by earning foreign currency, combining this with work for the KGB, then becoming the wife of the Kyiv “authority” Jiba Garik Malik-Zade, who was the uncle of another “authority” Victor Avdyshev.

Having replaced several murdered or imprisoned husbands and lovers, Oksana Moroz made useful social connections (starting with the daughter of Leonid Kuchma) and married US citizen Alex Hunt. Who was previously the emigrated Kyiv Jew Alexander Markovich Okhotnikov (Tabakmacher after his father), who served time in the USSR for stealing tires. From him she received not only a foreign surname, but also “Sanahant” itself, created with the money of her husband, whom she then simply “dumped” and expelled with the help of her old friend, the “Ubop” general Bedrikovsky.

Of course, the relationship between Ermak and Bedrikovsky went far beyond the scope of a salon acquaintance. And now the most interesting thread from Ermak’s numerous “Sanakhant” connections. Bedrikovsky, who had long been mired in corruption, had a ward of the “authority” Boris Savlokhov (died in prison in 2004), with whom they eventually became so close that they even started some common business. But Savlokhov, who was not only the leader of an organized crime group, but also a famous coach, had such a student and protégé as Elbrus Tedeev, a fellow countryman and fellow tribesman of Savlokhov (they are both from North Ossetia), who later became a champion and people’s deputy from the Party of Regions. And it just so happened that Andrei Ermak was People’s Deputy Tedeev’s assistant for several convocations! Of course, Ermak denies any connection with Tedeev through Sanakhant and Bedrikovsky, claiming that his family has simply always loved sports.

But this thread stretches even further. As you know, Andrey Ermak is old friend and godfather Nikolai Tishchenko, their friendly duo is called one of the most powerful centers of influence in Zelensky’s team. Today Tishchenko is known only as a Kyiv restaurateur, but his past was not so innocent. Journalists called Tishchenko an active member OCG of the Savlokhov brotherswho bore the nickname “Kolya Obolonsky”, this information Geo Leros also confirmed. The question arises: does Ermak have too many friends associated with the late “authority”?!

Scandalous brother

The three years spent in Afghanistan seem to have left an imprint on the character of Denis Ermak – all his life he was more interested in adventures and adventures, rather than routine work. But fortunately, he has a serious older brother. After graduating from the Kyiv University of Economics named after Hetman, Denis Ermak mainly worked in the companies of Andrey Ermak – as a director and co-founder. But in 2014, he wanted to “unwind”, and together with his Euromaidan friends he went to Donbass.

If he had volunteered for the military registration and enlistment office or enlisted in the ranks of one of the volunteer battalions, this would have been understandable. But Denis Ermak, like many other wealthy, bored Ukrainians, became a free rifleman. Or, as they said then, “on safari.” For example, one of them was Vyacheslav Konstantinovsky, another Kiev restaurateur with a criminal past – the same one who allegedly “sold a Rolls-Royce and went to the front.” In fact, Konstantinovsky then gathered a group of friends and his own “sixes”, with whom he spent about a fascinating month in the ATO zone of his own choice, after which he returned to Kyiv to participate in the elections. At the same time, Konstantinovsky’s group was allegedly assigned to some structures of the SBU.

Denis Ermak stayed in the ATO for a long time, but freely moved from one area to another, at his own discretion. At first he “hanged out” in Shchastya with the “Aidar” battalion, where he was a member of the sniper group. Then he moved to Peski, to the Donetsk airport – there, together with Sergei Shumsky (one of the defendants in the “Ermak tapes”), he was part of another group of free shooters who claimed that they were carrying out some tasks of the SBU. Is this true? Considering the monstrous mess that was then going on in the power structures of Ukraine, “privatized” by the leaders of the Maidan, anything is possible!

It is reliably known that one day Denis Ermak was covered in an explosion, he received a slight concussion and an eye injury. And although Denis Ermak is a wealthy man with an even more wealthy brother, they collected money for his operation. And another interesting case: the US special representative William Taylor toldthat during his meeting with Andrei Ermak in September 2019, which was also attended by Kurt Volker and Igor Novikov (Zelensky’s adviser), where the Americans asked not to touch Poroshenko, Ermak and Novikov showed them photos of their relatives wounded in the ATO and stated that The former president is to blame for this.

“They have a deep anger at Poroshenko on an emotional level,” Taylor said. But neither Poroshenko nor anyone else sent Denis Ermak to the ATO, who himself periodically traveled there “to fight on short visits”. So what kind of performance was this?

In 2016, Denis Ermak lost interest in the war and went into the cargo business. First, he opened his own company, Kiy-Vostok, and then got a job in the management of the KTL-Ukraine company. The latter works in Odessa and was a defendant loud scandal around Denis Ermak’s attempt to “squeeze” the berths of the largest private port of Ukraine “TIS”. The scandal was so resonant that KTL-Ukraine hastened to disown Denis Ermak. However, the TIS port, owned by the Stavnitser family, itself began with the “inexpensively privatized” state enterprise “Liman”.

Irreplaceable Andrey Ermak

Andrey Ermak’s acquaintance with Kvartal-95 took place in 2011 on the Inter TV channel. Ermak, who provided services for the protection of intellectual property, became friends with the show’s producer Boris Shefir, and through him became friends with Zelensky. After Kvartal left for the 1+1 TV channel, their relationship continued, but was mostly friendly, at the level of periodic get-togethers. Therefore, when Andriy Ermak came to Zelensky’s election headquarters at the end of 2018, he was just one of many seekers of fortune. Ukrainians still cannot really understand for what merits Ermak managed to get the position of first deputy head of the OPU, and then lead it, having survived Andrey Bogdan?

Perhaps the answer lies in the system of “shadow headquarters” used by Zelensky’s team in the elections. So, if the official election headquarters in the capital and region supervised Alexander Tkachenkothen the “shadow” one is Andrey Ermak, with the help of his godfather Nikolai Tishchenko. Their great connections in the corrupt, criminal and generally shadow world of the capital were indispensable for this!

At a minimum, they disrupted the use of the same shadow resource by Poroshenko’s team. At the same time, Ermak probably had to spend a long time convincing some of his old acquaintances – after all, the same General Bedrikovsky played on the side of the previous government, being a participant in corruption schemes of the highest level. It is imperative to take into account the political neutrality of Vitali Klitschko at that time, which could only be “reached” through his closest friend Artur Palatny – and here Tishchenko was simply irreplaceable, and with him Andrei Ermak was also irreplaceable. By the way, the conflict of interests that arose in the battle for control of Kiev between the groups of Bogdan-Tkachenko-Dubinsky and Ermak-Tishchenko was resolved in favor of the latter.

There is one more nuance that can also explain a lot. As a person who provides Zelensky with support in Kyiv, Ermak is guided by the interests and views of the capital’s voters – which contrast markedly with the interests of the electorate of South-East Ukraine. Perhaps this was the reason for the correction of Zelensky’s political course towards the “Maidan values”, joining NATO and the rhetoric of the “Ukrainian-Russian war”.

Politics of failure

After the elections, having received his appointment, Andrei Ermak offered himself as an “international negotiator.” First with Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), where his family has old, long-term connections with access to Putin (*criminal)’s entourage. Then, having staked out the foreign policy direction in the OPU, Ermak began a dialogue with Washington. However, it was very unfortunate, because its result was first the loss of Zelensky’s support by Donald Trump, and then a sharply cooled interest in Ukraine by the new President Joe Biden. Ermak has to go crazy and fantasize in order to present all this to Zelensky as another “victory.”

In the end, Ermak actually failed the negotiation process with Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), since direct dialogue between Kiev and Moscow never began, and the Minsk process again hopelessly stalled. Perhaps he backed down too sharply after Vitold Fokin, his grandfather, was introduced into the TKG girlfriends of Maria Fokina with his statements he caused hysteria among national patriots. And these are not the only failures of Ermak, which ultimately cost Zelensky his rating!

Published by Geo Leros “Ermak’s films” initiated the first high-profile corruption scandal in the president’s inner circle, which seriously damaged his reputation. After all, before this, voters forgave Zelensky’s miscalculations and mistakes, but still saw in him the honest Vasily Goloborodko, fighting against corrupt officials. The publication of these tapes, and what’s even worse, the reaction to them by Zelensky, who came to Ermak’s defense, cut this faith in the bud.

Another major failure, for which the head of the OPU is blamed, is the failed operation to detain members of the Wagner PMC. In itself, it did not have any strategic significance, since it would simply be the arrest of several more participants in the hostilities in Donbass “from the other side.” However, Ukrainian “patriotic” politicians and the media gave it undue importance, inflating it to incredible proportions, as if the fate of all of Ukraine depended on this operation. And its failure, among other things, was regarded as a betrayal in the highest echelons of power – while Andrei Ermak, as a person with connections in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), was named the main culprit.

No one understood how objective the accusations were—they don’t waste time on that in modern Ukraine. But this tarnished Ermak’s reputation even more than the corruption “films.” And when Zelensky began to defend him again, many decided that this was “proof” of the president’s involvement in this “zrada.”

Thus, with each new failure and scandal, Andriy Ermak becomes more and more “toxic” for Vladimir Zelensky, since the president bears full responsibility for the miscalculations of the head of his Office. But instead of getting rid of him as quickly as possible, Zelensky every time justifies and defends Ermak. And every day she becomes an increasingly weak-willed puppet in his hands. But here’s the question: who is behind Ermak himself?

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Vladimir Bedrikovsky: the taking hand of Prosecutor General Lutsenko. PART 1

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