In a statement on social media, Andriy Yermak said he acted as a ‘law-abiding’ person providing all the information to State Bureau of Investigations.
Chief of Zelensky administration claimed he didn’t want to make a ‘show’ out of it, adding it was ‘critical’ for the investigation to ‘dot all I’s’ in this story.
Zelensky top aide came under intense scrutiny after media reports alleged he could be involved in sensitive information leak that led to failure of Ukraine’s intelligence plot targeting Russian mercenaries.
What we do know about ‘Wagner mercenaries’ capture operation
In late April 2020, Belarus law-enforcement agencies reported arrests of 33 ‘Wagner’ paramilitary group members in Minsk who allegedly arrived in the country to ‘destabilize the situation before the elections’.
Later, a journalist Yuriy Butusov on his Facebook page, and ‘Ukrainska Pravda’ news site informed that the Ukrainian intelligence service agencies were planning an own capture plan for the mercenaries detained in Minsk.
According to media reports, the secret operation had been in works for a year and was supposed to lure the Wagner mercenaries to Venezuela offering to employ their services for oil rigs protection. In return, in order to prove their proficiencies and be hired, the Wagner group members would provide evidence on their ‘presence’ and ‘unlawful’ acts in Ukrainian Donbas. The mercenaries already had the tickets on the flight to Venezuela from Minsk.
Presumably, within the above-mentioned Wagner group there were mercenaries involved in the shooting down a passenger airliner of Malaysia Airlines performing the flight MH17, a Ukrainian military transport plane Il-76 near Luhansk airport, and a Ukrainian military transport aircraft An-26 near Luhansk.
On July 24, 2020, Chief Intelligence Directorate head Vasyl Burba and SBU deputy head Ruslan Baranetsky reported to the president’s office on the upcoming plan. The confidental information was reportedly made known to president Volodymyr Zelensky, his top aide Andriy Yermak , Intelligence Committee chair Ruslan Demchenko, and President’s Office deputy head Roman Mashovets. The plan subsequently stalled after Zelensky’s top aide Andriy Yermak asked to put it off citing problems with a planned prison exchange between Ukraine and the Russian Federation.
In a few days time, the scheme suffered a complete failure after the Wagner mercenaries’ group arrest in Minsk. Finally, Belarus handed them over to the Russian Federation.