From: New Voice of Ukraine by Demian Shevko — World Affairs Editor and Correspondent at The New Voice of Ukraine (English), Research fellow at National Institute for Strategic Studies
There are moments in a nation’s life when internal crises reveal not decay, but transformation. Ukraine is living through exactly such a moment.
Over the past weeks, a sweeping corruption scandal has exploded across the political system. It has shaken ministries, exposed long-protected networks, triggered high-level dismissals, and dominated headlines across Europe. For days, news feeds in Kyiv begin and end with revelations from NABU and SAPO, Ukraine’s independent anti-corruption institutions, which have finally gone public with evidence implicating ministers, deputy ministers, influential intermediaries, and even figures close to the Office of the President.
To many Western observers, the timing looks catastrophic. Ukraine is fighting a total war against a larger, genocidal neighbor. Its frontline situation is dangerous. Its U.S. support is uncertain. And now a mafia-like network appears inside the state, radiating outward into energy, infrastructure, and even parts of the defense sector. For outsiders, it is easy to see weakness, instability, even crisis.
But this is a serious misunderstanding of what is happening.
This scandal is not a sign of Ukraine’s collapse.
It is evidence of Ukraine’s democratic strength.
What Europe is witnessing is not the failure of a state under pressure. It is the painful, necessary self-cleansing of a country fighting two wars at once: one against Russia’s invasion, and another against the corrupt, post-Soviet structures that have haunted Ukraine for decades. And unlike Russia, Ukraine is winning the second war.
The political shock of recent weeks began with what Ukrainians now call Midich Gate. Investigators uncovered a sprawling web of high-level corruption involving government officials, intermediaries, and state-owned enterprises. The most explosive element was the sheer breadth of the network. It touched the energy sector, including Energoatom, the operator of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities. It extended into procurement structures and, to the horror of Ukrainian society, reached into areas connected to military supply chains. For a country fighting for survival, this revelation felt like a betrayal.
But the deeper shock came from the political implications. One of the closest and most influential figures around President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was suddenly at the center of the storm: Andriy Yermak, the head of the Presidential Office and arguably the second-most powerful man in Ukraine. For years, Zelenskyy relied on him completely. Yermak managed internal affairs, coordinated ministries, oversaw appointments, negotiated with foreign partners, and shaped almost every major political process in Kyiv. Zelenskyy, who prefers broad direction to bureaucratic detail, entrusted Yermak with immense executive control.
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