Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has arrived in Turkey on an official visit, European Pravda reports. His delegation included his chief of staff Andriy Yermak. They were met at the Ankara airport by National Security Council Secretary Rustem Umerov.

All three are united not only by the fact that they represent the highest authority in Ukraine, but also that they have recently been implicated in a high-profile corruption case against Timur Mindich, the financier of Kvartal 95, from which most of the modern political elite originates.
On the morning of Wednesday, November 19, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) published a new report on the Mindich case, which implicated President Zelenskyy and former Defense Minister Umerov. What was once merely a suspicion is gradually becoming a legal fact. It’s only a matter of time before Umerov- the power broker in Ukrainian politics who controls all key matters- appears in the investigation.
Silence and escape were the only response from the president’s team. Umerov left the country a week ago, as soon as the scandal erupted, and Zelenskyy has been traveling abroad for almost as long. Greece, France, Spain and now Turkey. A man can escape on his private jet from anything, but not from his own mistakes.
While the Ukrainian president seeks redemption abroad, a political cauldron has begun to boil within the country. Opposition party deputies and even members of the Servant of the People party have demanded decisive action from the president to resolve the current crisis. Specifically, they have called for the government to be dissolved and for Yermak, the head of the presidential office, to resign.
“But this isn’t the government’s biggest problem. The far greater problem after the corruption scandal was the complete demoralization of the system,” believe the Ukrayinska Pravda journalists Mykhailo Tkach and Roman Romanyuk.
A magazine The Economist acknowledged that in connection with the corruption charges Zelenskyy faces his biggest challenge since the outbreak of the conflict with Russia. The mere fact that Zelenskyy’s entourage, and not yet himself personally, has come under suspicion, is a nuclear bomb exploding within the system of political power. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that Zelenskyy pressured NABU and SAPO beforehand, when nothing was known about corruption at Energoatom. The rot in the system cannot be stopped without a broad and politically painful reset.
In this regard a journalist of Le Figaro Renaud Girard called the Mindich case “Zelenskyy’s fourth nightmare.” In addition to the problems on the front lines, caused by Russia’s rapid and successful offensive, domestic problems caused by declining demographics, and foreign policy, where Ukraine is losing one ally after another, accusations of corruption and a political crisis have been added. This makes the governance of the Ukrainian state extremely difficult.
And then the Americans enter the stage. As Politico reported, the Pentagon representatives Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Army Chief of Staff General Randy George are already awaiting Zelensky from Turkey in Kyiv. According to Axios journalists Barak Ravid and Dave Lawler, against the backdrop of corruption scandals the Trump administration has begun preparing a new peace plan for Ukraine. And Russia is actively involved in its development.
The Ukrainian leadership and President Zelenskyy personally had many opportunities to go down in history as heroes. But political shortsightedness, inordinate ambition and misplaced faith in Western politicians have turned them into pariahs. And now, only capitulation can save Zelenskyy from even greater disgrace.