Andriy Yermak is in court. He is suspected of money laundering. There is talk of influence on SBU and personnel decisions with Feng Shui — a complete (for now) anthology of accusations and questions for the investigation

Yermakʼs role in construction

The scheme came into effect in 2018. Then, future minister Oleksiy Chernyshov became one of the founders of the company, which in the summer of 2019 purchased more than 4 hectares of land from the Kozyn Village Council. Later, the plot was enlarged — additional land was purchased.

Chernyshov decided to build houses for himself and “those who have influence on political and economic processes”. The customer for the construction was the “Sunny Beach” housing cooperative. Construction of four private houses and one public spa complex began in May 2020, when Chernyshov had already become Minister of Community and Territorial Development.

The investigation does not name the specific date when Andriy Yermak appeared in the case and when the cooperative members distributed the houses. Chernyshov got the estate Residence 4 [R4], Tymur Mindich — R3, Andriy Yermak — R2. Nothing is known about the owner of R1. The house for the spa area is R0.

It is known that Yermak joined the project no later than July 20, 2020, and it was from this time that he had authorized representatives who made decisions regarding the construction of his residence.

Initially, from July 20, 2020, the authorized representative was Andriyʼs father Borys Mykhailovych Yermak, and from August 2022, Natalia Ihorivna Kvelenkova. Chernyshovʼs authorized representative was his wife Svitlana, as well as the head of “Sunny Beach” Serhiy Siranchuk.

The design documentation was approved in late 2020 — early 2021. The mobile phone of one of the witnesses in the case has a copy of the construction concept with a signature that is similar to Andriy Yermakʼs signature. He approved the concept no later than October 2020.

The handwriting examination has not yet been conducted — the signature was compared with Yermakʼs receipt. The prosecutor did not specify which receipt she was referring to.

Disputes arose between representatives of the future residents of "Dynastia" during the construction. The investigation has correspondence between Yermakʼs father and Chernyshovʼs authorized representative Siranchuk.

From the message, which was eventually forwarded to Chernyshov, it is clear that Yermak Sr. is dissatisfied with how the funds are being spent:

"Serhiy, dear, everything was clear to me after our meeting. I want our position to be clear. As a person who is directly related to R2 and has the appropriate authority from him — and you know this — I want not only to track what the funds transferred to the construction of R2 were spent on, but also to participate in the coordination, including tender procedures for the cost of purchasing materials and equipment, and to conduct an audit of the acts of work performed. That is, the list that we agreed on in the draft memorandum. I think this is a completely normal desire of the customer, who pays for everything with his own money."

Where does the money for construction come from?

The design of the entire complex alone cost $735 000, of which $178 000 went to the Yermak residence project. In total, UAH 460 million were spent on the construction of the complex during 2020-2025.

The investigation claims that these funds were invested by Chernyshov, Yermak, and Mindich. The prosecutor calls Andriy Yermak a "co-perpetrator of the crime" and notes that he "provided financing for the construction of facilities, the owner of which he was to become, including at the expense of funds received as a result of the criminal activities of the organization headed by Mindich".

The investigation, at least in the open part, does not report how exactly Yermak provided this financing and how much money he spent. There is only a general picture.

The project was financed in various ways. The first was through share contributions from two co-owners of “Sunny Beach” Hennadii Opalchuk and Lilia Lysenko. They contributed UAH 15.6 million. The investigation believes that they received this money for fictitious services to companies that appear in other proceedings. Opalchuk also deposited money he received from the purchase and sale of various securities into “Sunny Beach” accounts in cash. His profit for four transactions amounted to UAH 5.5 million.

The second way to finance the construction was cash obtained as a result of laundering funds received under the “barrier” scheme at “Energoatom”, but not only at their expense. This scheme provided 72% of the total funds for the construction. In total, $1.9 million was allocated for Yermak’s residence.

The third way is cash, the origin of which the investigation has not yet established.

Is this really Yermak?

The investigation has provided several pieces of evidence that the former head of the Office had a connection to the residence and knew about the details of the construction.

This includes correspondence with Yermak between various people involved in the project — Kvelenkova, Chernyshov’s wife Svitlana, and Olha Novikova, who coordinated the design with him.

There is also correspondence between Novikova and her sister, where the former complains: “our plans changed three times in one day: here Chernyshov canceled the meeting, there Yermak scheduled it for Saturday evening.”

After the first suspicions, they tried to remove the property from the attack

After Chernyshov was declared suspicious in June 2025, the project was decided to be suspended. NABU has already made public the recordings of the conversations about this earlier. In them, Mindich tells Kvelenkova that the project needs to be frozen for a year.

After that, the participants in the scheme developed a plan on how to avoid the seizure of the plot and houses. This was a complex scheme in which many companies were supposed to participate. In the end, they did not have time to implement it. On October 30, 2025, HACC arrested the plot.

Prosecutor Valentyna Hrebenyuk reads out the motion for a restraining order.

Скриншот трансляції «Суспільне Новини» / YouTube

The defense will present its arguments on Wednesday afternoon.

Why NABU insists that Yermak be sent to pre-trial detention

Prosecutor Valentyna Hrebenyuk is demanding that Yermak be sent to a pre-trial detention center. In her opinion, all five risks stipulated by law are present for the strictest preventive measure.

To substantiate the risks, Hrebenyuk informed the court of the following facts:

• Yermak has a Mercedes S350, but drives with cover plates.
• In addition to his regular passport, he has 4 diplomatic ones, the most recent of which expires in 2030. From the moment of the full-scale invasion until November 2025, he crossed the border 86 times.
• Information about border crossings after his dismissal from the post of head of OP was removed from the Arkan system. This is what the prosecutor believes. Yermak told reporters that he did not travel abroad after his dismissal.
• Yermak conspired to provide information about the construction, while others tried to destroy evidence. This investigation proves that Yermak is listed as LL, R2, or, in extreme cases, AB by other participants. Other participants tried to hide or destroy evidence. For example, Lilia Lysenko and another defendant hid phones and laptops from the investigation. There are also recording protocols in which, after Chernyshov was suspected, the participants discuss the need to destroy certain files from the laptop, change phone numbers, etc.
• Yermak has the opportunity to put pressure on the investigation — through SBU, because he had a "program". According to Hrebenyuk, on December 24, during a search of the car of Yermakʼs driver Vyacheslav Abramov, three sheets of paper with the text: "SBU of Ukraine: Program-Maximum" were seized. There were three different plans written there, who and to which leadership positions in SBU should be appointed: program-maximum, medium program and program-minimum. Grebenyuk did not name the persons of the applicants, only noted that some of the people involved in the program now hold positions in SBU. The only name the prosecutor named in the medium program was General Ilya Vityuk.
  In the phone book of Yermakʼs driver, the phones of two former prosecutors — Iryna Venedyktova and Andriy Kostin, as well as the current First Deputy Head of SBU Oleksandr Poklad — were also found. Abramov had informal chats with them. On December 10, 2025, Abramov and Poklad discussed the latterʼs meeting with an unknown “person_5” who was supposed to be waiting for Poklad in the car.
  Based on the documents found, the investigation also believes that Yermak could have influenced SBU, the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI), the Prosecutorʼs Office, the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), and the Ministry of Finance.
• Yermak was involved in personnel appointments and discussed them with a contact signed “Veronika Feng-Shui Office”. According to the prosecutor, Yermak sent the candidates’ dates of birth to this addressee. Thus, Yermak consulted with “Veronika” since 2020 about the head of the State Administration for Civil Affairs Ihor Lysyi, the appointment of the prime minister [obviously, this refers to Denys Shmyhal], the then Prosecutor General Iryna Venedyktova, the current Minister of Health [probably Viktor Lyashko, who was appointed to the position on May 20, 2021], as well as the deputy head of the Public Prosecutor’s Office Oleh Tatarov.
• Pressure from SBU on an expert who is supposed to assess the real cost of unfinished construction. Hrebenyuk says that as soon as the expert started his work, publications about him appeared in Telegram channels. And already in 2026, various SBU units were collecting information about the expert from registers. A little later, direct threats began, which concerned a specific examination of construction in Kozyn. This is why the examination has not yet been completed. The prosecutor emphasized that this is not the first examination in the case, and as long as the examinations did not directly concern Yermak, the experts were not pressured.
• To justify the bail of UAH 180 million, the prosecutor cited a conversation between the deputy and former friend of Yermak, Mykola Tyshchenko, and Yermakʼs driver in September 2023. Then Tyshchenko complained that Yermak was pushing him away, and he understood that "Yermak is already somewhere in space and he is a multimillionaire", and "cited a number of facts where, in his opinion, billions of hryvnias were embezzled from the budget, and he was not even given the Transcarpathian region under supervision".

Questions for investigation

At this stage, a number of questions remain unclear:

• If the case materials state that Yermak used money that a criminal organization obtained through criminal means, why is he not charged with participation in a criminal organization (Article 255 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine)?
• The investigation promises to provide more information about the criminal means by which the funds that Yermak allegedly legalized were obtained. There are hints of a “gateway” scheme, income from fictitious companies, and a still unclear third way. It is fundamentally important for the case as a result of which crimes the funds were obtained.
• The prosecutor did not provide information that Yermak knew about the criminal origin of the funds, about the scheme in general, and facilitated it. All the evidence indicates only that he was aware of the details of the construction.
• Did Yermak have legal means to finance the construction? Did investigators investigate his income and assets before joining the Office?
• If the prosecutorʼs office believes that Yermak should be sent to pre-trial detention, and justifies this by the large number of risks, then why was he not detained immediately after being served with the suspicion, but released home?