Two high-ranking people in the apparatus surrounding Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi were fired this week: Iryna Venediktova, head of the public prosecutor’s office, and head of the SBU security service, Ivan Bakanov.
The dismissals come in the wake of a number of employees in the prosecution being accused of high treason after allegedly collaborating with the Russians.
– It’s nothing new that he fires people, says Jørn Holm-Hansen, Ukraine expert and senior researcher at the Urban and Regional Research Institute NIBR at OsloMet.
Inner circuit
In 2020, the Ukrainian president dismissed his chief of staff Andrij Bohdan, who, according to Holm-Hansen, was the one at the time who suggested that Zelenskyj should run.
– He was too headstrong, says the researcher.
What Bohdan and the recently deposed Venediktova and Bakanov have in common is that all three belonged to Zelenskyi’s inner circle even before he became president.
Until then he was mainly known as an actor. In the series “Servant of the People” he plays a teacher who, without any political experience, becomes the president of Ukraine. The series continued until he met the same fate in 2019.
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– Zelenskyj appointed friends and acquaintances over a low shoe when he became president in 2019. 30 people who had connections to his production company Kvartal 95, got important positions in Ukraine after the election, says Holm-Hansen.
– Not very competent
The Ukrainian president was elected as an alternative to the political elites of Ukraine, which are and have been completely permeated with corruption.
– Putting in these people was in line with his alleged “miracle cure” when he was elected: putting in new, unwritten papers that were not corrupt. But many of them, in addition to being nondescript leaves, were not very competent, he says.
The ousted head of the security service, Ivan Bakanov, was a childhood friend and schoolmate of Zelenskyi. He was part of the production company, and also led the election campaign in 2019, says the researcher.
– He has not actually been catastrophically bad in his role in the security service, but they have found many examples of possible betrayal and collaboration with the enemy in the legal apparatus and the prosecution, says the researcher.
“The Gray Eminence”
The head of the country’s highest prosecutor’s office, Iryna Venediktova, also belonged to Zelensky’s close circle from before.
Both were formally suspended from their positions on Monday.
– It is justified that the prosecution has not been on duty, and the security service has not worked, says Holm-Hansen.
He regularly keeps up to date with the Ukrainian media, which is now identifying a third player in the game surrounding the two departures.
Ukrainian Pravda reports that the president’s chief of staff Andrij Jermak, dubbed by the newspaper “The gray eminence” in Ukrainian politics, is playing his own game to tighten his grip on power in Kyiv.
– He has built up his own apparatus of power within the apparatus of power, and would like to have control over access to the president’s ear. He does not want too many direct contact lines to go to Zelenskyj, he wants it to go through him, says Holm-Hansen.
On April 1, Zelenskyi also fired two generals: former head of the security service Andriy Naumov and Kherson region security chief Serhiy Kryvoruchko, accusing them of treason.
– Do you think we will see more dismissals in the apparatus around Zelenskyj in the future?
– It is difficult to say, but there is nervousness in the Ukrainian state apparatus. The Russian side is good at infiltrating, and there have long been people with loyalty to Russia in the Ukrainian state apparatus, says Holm-Hansen and continues:
– At the same time, the situation is completely different now. Those who before in their quiet minds may have been friendly to Russia have now turned. The situation now is something completely different than after the annexation of Crimea, which happened without bloodshed.