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Yermak’s phone holds treasure trove of damning evidence, says Ukrainian MP

According to Andrey Goncharenko, each chat in Yermak’s phone "is a separate criminal investigation"

MOSCOW, November 28. /TASS/. If authorities look at the contents of Vladimir Zelensky office head Andrey Yermak’s phone, they would find loads more evidence about corruption and beyond, a Ukrainian lawmaker suggested.

"I wonder if they are going to seize Yermak’s phone now in light of evidence against him in the Mindich case. Yermak’s phone would mean 170 more potential criminal cases," Alexey Goncharenko (designated as terrorist and extremist in Russia) wrote on his Telegram channel.

According to Goncharenko, each chat in Yermak’s phone "is a separate criminal investigation."

It was reported earlier on Friday that Yermak’s apartment had been searched by officers of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) as part of a probe into the high-profile corruption case. Later, Yermak confirmed these reports.

Mindich case

On November 10, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO), both independent from Zelensky’s office, announced an investigation into a major corruption scheme in the energy sector, dubbed Operation Midas. Searches were conducted at the Energoatom energy company and the residences of entrepreneur Timur Mindich and the now suspended Justice Minister German Galushchenko, who served as the country’s energy minister at the time of the events that are being looked into. The investigation found that participants in the scheme had laundered around $100 million. NABU also started to release recordings of conversations from Mindich’s apartment, which revealed discussions of corrupt practices.

On November 11, along with Mindich, charges in the case were brought against former Deputy Prime Minister and former Minister of National Unity Alexey Chernyshov, who is also seen as a member of Zelensky’s inner circle. However, Mindich, who some have called Zelensky’s "wallet," left the country a few hours before searches started, and is now in Israel. On November 17, reports indicated that Andrey Yermak might appear in the Mindich case files under the pseudonym Ali Baba.

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