Disaster for Zelensky as aide quits over 'corruption'

The presidential palace in Kyiv is roiling. Volodymyr Zelensky's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, has resigned as his office and home were raided by anti-corruption police and detectives on the trail of a €100m (£88m) fraud.

- SAM KILEY WORLD AFFAIRS EDITOR

The racket, which has already claimed the political heads of two ministers and sent a former business partner and close friend of Zelensky into exile and on the run outside the wartorn nation, is a strategic blow.

It proves, as if it were needed, how wide and deep and how cynical corruption goes. The missing funds were allegedly creamed off by Zelensky’s cronies from contacts to fix and defend the Ukrainian energy sector, which has been under sustained Russian attacks for more than two years.

It comes as winter takes its icy grip on the country. It comes as people may be forced out of Ukraine not by war, but by cold, and it comes as Russia has made small gains on the eastern front.

Zelensky’s administration has been under attack by Russian trolls as illegitimate and corrupt. The Ukrainian president won landslide elections, and so did his party, so the former is an outright lie.