TBILISI, November 28. /TASS/. In its fierce belief that it’s fighting for its sovereignty, Ukraine must understand that it has, in fact, lost all independence, Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili said.
"Who do you think is conducting searches at [Vladimir Zelensky's office head Andrey] Yermak’s place? The Ukrainian authorities? Of course not. This is what foreign influence on state institutions looks like - people infiltrating state institutions, and manipulating countries through these institutions. Today, Ukraine cannot decide on matters such as starting and ending wars, they cannot decide who to detain and who to release. This is a true tragedy that we have been witnessing in Ukraine in recent days, that under the guise of fighting for sovereignty, they have completely surrendered their sovereignty," he told reporters.
According to Papuashvili, external forces in Ukraine, with the help of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), detain and release whomever they want in the country's leadership.
On Friday, it became known that NABU had conducted searches at Yermak's residence as part of an investigation. Yermak himself later confirmed that searches were being conducted at his apartment. Christopher Miller, a correspondent for the Financial Times in Kiev, reported that the searches were being conducted as part of Operation Midas. In turn, Verkhovna Rada lawmaker Alexey Goncharenko (listed in Russia as a terrorist and extremist) and a number of media outlets have already stated that NABU is preparing to bring charges against Yermak.
On November 10, Ukraine’s NABU and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) announced a large-scale operation dubbed Midas to uncover a major corruption scheme in the energy sector. Searches were conducted at the home of Timur Mindich, who is often referred to as Zelensky’s "wallet," as well as at the residence of Justice Minister German Galuschenko, who had previously served as Minister of Energy, and at the Energoatom company. The NABU then began publishing excerpts from conversations in Mindich’s apartment, during which corruption schemes were discussed. According to the investigation, the participants in the criminal scheme laundered at least 100 million dollars.
On November 11, NABU filed the first charges, including Mindich as the head of a criminal organization, as well as former Deputy Prime Minister and ex-Minister of National Unity Alexey Chernyshov, who remains chummy with Zelensky. On the same day, the government prematurely terminated the powers of the supervisory board of Energoatom, and on November 12, the Verkhovna Rada received resignation letters from Galushchenko and Energy Minister Svetlana Grinchuk. Mindich, who is called Zelensky’s friend and "wallet," left Ukraine a few hours before the searches to Israel. On November 17, information emerged that Yermak appears in NABU's recordings under the pseudonym Ali Baba.