By Orysia Lutsevych OBE, Deputy Director, Russia and Eurasia Programme; Head of the Ukraine Forum 

Ukraine’s second most powerful man resigned on 28 November, just as the country found itself fighting for its life on two fronts – militarily and diplomatically.

Andriy Yermak had served as the head of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presidential office for well over five years, long before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. All that time he was both a solution and a problem for Zelenskyy.