US revives Ukraine-Russia peace push with Zelenskyy on the defensive

LONDON — As a high-level U.S. military delegation arrived in Kyiv this week in a bid to revive the White House’s stalled push for an end to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was navigating a sprawling corruption scandal that was shaking the very foundations of his government.

The military delegation arrived Wednesday into a capital in turmoil, as a corruption scandal estimated by investigators to involve some $100 million forced the dismissal of two cabinet ministers, prompted protests in the Rada — Ukraine’s unicameral parliament — and calls for a coalition government of national unity, with opposition figures even suggesting the scandal could implicate Zelenskyy’s influential chief of staff, Andriy Yermak.

Oleksandr Merezhko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament representing Zelenskyy’s party and the chair of the body’s foreign affairs committee, told ABC News, “We have entered into a serious political crisis, which is only starting to unfold. We might be on the threshold of serious political changes.”

As the scandal swirled, the White House has presented Ukraine with a new 28-point peace plan drawn up in coordination with Moscow that contains conditions that are widely seen in Ukraine as effectively demanding the country’s capitulation.

Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll and Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George led the U.S. group to Kyiv on Wednesday, with a U.S. official confirming to ABC News the U.S. delegation was read in on the new peace plan. The U.S. military officials are the most senior delegation to visit Ukraine since President Donald Trump took office.

Zelenskyy’s office confirmed on Thursday that they have received the U.S. plan, noting they will discuss the plan with Trump in the coming days.

“Since the first days of the war, we have taken one, extremely simple position: Ukraine needs peace,” Zelenskyy said in his evening address. “And a real peace — one that will not be broken by a third invasion.”

Driscoll met with Zelenskyy for an hour on Thursday and discussed “a collaborative plan to achieve peace in Ukraine,” according to a U.S. official.

“This is a comprehensive plan to end the war,” the official said of the plan. The plan was described as a collaboration between the U.S. and Ukraine.

The official added Zelenskyy and Driscoll “agreed on an aggressive timeline” for signing a framework for an agreement to start the peace process.

The plan includes a number of maximalist demands that the Kremlin has long demanded and that have been previously dismissed as non-starters for Kyiv, including that Ukraine cut its armed forced by more than half and cede swaths of territory not yet occupied by Russia, according to the Ukrainian official.

Ukraine would also be forbidden from possessing long-range weapons, while Moscow would retain virtually all the territory it has occupied — and receive some form of recognition of its 2014 seizure of Crimea under the latest proposed U.S. plan.

Zelenskyy — whom Trump previously framed as illegitimate and in March said was without “the cards” needed for peace negotiations with Russia — already appeared to be on shaky ground in recent days as the corruption scandal widened, with opposition parties and even figures within his own Servant of the People party calling for a major governmental shakeup.

Now he will also have to juggle that scandal along with the new U.S. peace drive. In Ukraine, some observers have suggested the Trump administration has chosen the moment deliberately, hoping a vulnerable Zelenskyy can be forced into accepting unfavorable terms.

One former U.S. official, who did not wish to be named as they were not authorized to speak publicly, told ABC News, “The timing of this so-called peace plan a week after the Ukraine corruption investigations went public is interesting, to say the least.”

“I really don’t think these two things are unrelated,” the source added.

The Energoatom scandal

Zelenskyy has not been personally implicated in what is perhaps the country’s most serious corruption scandal of the war. The president has vowed “a swift and just response” to any wrongdoing.

Investigators from Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Agency (NABU) allege those involved forced suppliers of the state-owned Energoatom nuclear energy body to pay kickbacks to retain business with the corporation and to prevent payments being blocked.

Among the figures facing charges related to the scheme is Timur Mindich, a businessman and long-time associate of Zelenskyy, who co-owns the Kvartal 95 media production company founded by Zelenskyy before he became president.

Also charged was Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov. Justice Minister German Galushenko and Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk have both been removed from their positions and are being investigated by anti-corruption officials. All three deny wrongdoing.

Volodymyr Fesenko, a political scientist and the СEO of the Center for Political Studies “Penta” in Kyiv, told ABC News that while he does not expect Zelenskyy’s government to collapse, the scandal has “dealt a severe blow” to the president’s position. 

Despite his heroic wartime leadership, concerns abound among domestic critics that the president has failed — or even stymied efforts — to address Ukraine’s systemic corruption issues, Fesenko said.

“Zelenskyy’s opponents place the blame squarely on President Zelenskyy,” Fesenko said. “For them, the resignation of Yermak or the government won’t be enough. Ultimately, they will demand Zelenskyy’s resignation.”

Zelenskyy’s ‘right hand’

Zelenskyy’s chief-of-staff, Yermak has also not been implicated by investigators in the corruption scandal. But he is facing widespread suspicion from lawmakers and campaigners, who allege he was likely behind a failed effort in the summer by Zelenskyy’s administration to seize control over the anti-corruption agencies now investigating Mindich.

The prime danger for Zelenskyy is if the NABU probe reaches as high as the president’s office, Fesenko said. “If Yermak appears in NABU records as a potential suspect in a corruption scheme … then his dismissal will become almost inevitable,” he said.

The loss of Yermak — Zelenskyy’s point man on all matters of importance, including in years of talks with the U.S. and European partners — would be a major disruption for Zelenskyy, according to observers. “They’ve become fused together,” Fesenko said.

“Dismissing Yermak would be like chopping off his own right hand,” Fesenko said of the president.

Daria Kaleniuk, a veteran activist who heads the Anti-Corruption Action Centre in Kyiv, told ABC News she believed the scandal would eventually reach Yermak.

“This kind of large-scale corruption in critical sectors of Ukraine’s economy is impossible without the knowledge of Andriy Yermak,” she said, pointing to his role in appointing and directing senior law enforcement officials and the “enormous concentration of power” in his hands.

Kaleniuk said she could still believe Zelenskyy himself was not aware of the corruption schemes, but she warned the president’s actions now would show if that was true.

“Zelenskyy has no other option but to get rid of Yermak if he wants to prove he was not involved in these schemes,” she said. “For me, it’s now the moment of absolute clarity. With who is Zelensky — with the people of Ukraine? Or with Yermak?”

Yermak has denied involvement in the corruption scandal.

Russian maneuvers

The Kremlin has long sought to undermine Ukraine by amplifying domestic turbulence.

There is a sense in Kyiv that unfolding events could undercut Ukraine’s position in facing down Russia’s ongoing aggression, said Merezhko, the member of parliament. “Any disunity or political divisions within the country play into the hands of Putin,” he said.

Dmitry Medvedev — the former Russian president and prime minister now serving on the country’s Security Council — wrote with apparent gloating sarcasm to suggest that the scandal “threatens to completely disfigure the face of a hero who fearlessly fights for the freedom of the country” — a reference to Zelenskyy.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov also seized on the scandal to suggest it should put Western support in doubt. “It seems this is their affair — I mean the Americans and the Europeans — to think about their money, or, it would be correct to say, to think about their own taxpayers, their own citizens,” he told the state-owned VGTRK channel.

NABU and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) have said their investigation is ongoing and suggested more figures are likely to be named.

But while many Ukrainians expressed fury over the scandal, some also noted the investigations also proved Ukraine was capable of uncovering high-level corruption.

“This is precisely what our partners demand of us,” said Fesenko.

Merezhko said he hoped the revival of Trump’s peace campaign would not see the White House go over Kyiv’s head in search of a deal with the Kremlin.

“If it’s true that there are negotiations over the head of Ukraine about our fate, then it looks like Munich,” he added, referring to the infamous 1938 agreement that ceded parts of then-Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany without Prague’s involvement in the talks.

“We expect Trump to continue to respect the principle of ‘nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,'” Merezhko added. “No agreement contrary to Ukraine’s security and interests can be imposed upon the Ukrainian people and parliament.”

ABC News’ Luis Martinez and Oleksiy Pshemyskiy contributed to this report.