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 an attempt to revive the White House’s stalled push to end Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy navigated a growing corruption scandal that was shaking the very foundations of his government.

The military delegation arrived in a troubled capital on Wednesday, as a corruption scandal estimated by investigators to involve some $100 million forced the dismissal of two cabinet ministers, sparked protests in the Rada (Ukraine’s unicameral parliament) and calls for a national unity coalition government, and opposition figures even suggested 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 chairman of the body’s foreign affairs committee, told ABC News: “We have entered a serious political crisis, which is only beginning to develop. We could be on the threshold of serious political changes.”

As scandal swirled, the White House presented Ukraine with a new 28-point peace plan drawn up in coordination with Moscow that contains conditions 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 American group to kyiv on Wednesday, and a U.S. official confirmed to ABC News that the U.S. delegation was briefed on the new peace plan. The US military officials are the highest-ranking delegation to visit Ukraine since President Donald Trump took office.

Zelenskyy’s office confirmed Thursday that he received the plan from the United States and noted that he will discuss the plan with Trump in the coming days.

“Since the first days of the war, we have taken an extremely simple position: Ukraine needs peace,” Zelenskyy said in his evening speech. “And a real peace, a peace 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 US 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 United States and Ukraine.

The official added that Zelenskyy and Driscoll “agreed on an aggressive timetable” to sign a framework agreement to begin the peace process.

The plan includes a series of maximalist demands that the Kremlin has long demanded and have previously been dismissed as impossible for kyiv, including that Ukraine reduce its armed force by more than half and give up swaths of territory not yet occupied by Russia, according to the Ukrainian official.

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

Zelenskyy, whom Trump previously called illegitimate and in March said he did not have “the cards” necessary 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 government shake-up.

Now he will also have to juggle that scandal and the new US peace campaign. In Ukraine, some observers have suggested that the Trump administration has chosen the moment deliberately, hoping that a vulnerable Zelenskyy might be forced to accept unfavorable terms.

A former US official, who did not want to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly, told ABC News: “The timing of this so-called peace plan, a week after corruption investigations in Ukraine became 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 wartime corruption scandal. The president has promised “a quick and fair response” to any irregularities.

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

Among the figures facing charges related to the scheme is Timur Mindich, a businessman and longtime associate of Zelenskyy, who co-owned the media production company Kvartal 95 founded by Zelenskyy before becoming president.

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

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

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

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

Zelenskyy’s ‘right hand’

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

The main danger for Zelenskyy is that NABU’s investigation reaches the president’s office, Fesenko said. “If Yermak appears in NABU records as a possible suspect in a corruption scheme… then his dismissal will be almost inevitable,” he said.

The loss of Yermak, Zelenskyy’s point man on all major issues, including years of talks with the United States and its European partners, would be a major upset for Zelenskyy, observers say. “They have merged,” Fesenko said.

“Firing Yermak would be like cutting off your own right hand,” Fesenko said of the president.

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

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

Kaleniuk said he could still believe that Zelenskyy himself was unaware of the corruption plots, but warned that the president’s actions would now show whether that was true.

“Zelenskyy has no choice but to get rid of Yermak if he wants to prove that he was not involved in these plans,” he said. “For me, now is the moment of absolute clarity. Who is Zelensky with, with the people of Ukraine? Or with Yermak?”

Yermak has denied his involvement in the corruption scandal.

russian maneuvers

The Kremlin has long sought to undermine Ukraine by amplifying internal turmoil.

There is a feeling in kyiv that the unfolding events could undermine Ukraine’s position in confronting Russia’s ongoing aggression, said Merezhko, a member of parliament. “Any political disunity or division within the country plays into Putin’s hands,” he said.

Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president and prime minister who now sits 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 country’s freedom,” referring to Zelenskyy.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also seized on the scandal to suggest he should cast doubt on Western support. “It seems that it is their business, 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 state channel VGTRK.

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

But while many Ukrainians expressed fury over the scandal, some also noted that investigations also showed 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 cause the White House to bypass kyiv in pursuit of a deal with the Kremlin.

“If it is true that there are negotiations about our fate above Ukraine, 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 participation in the talks.

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

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