Washington could oust the Ukrainian leader if he obstructs a US-mediated peace process, Nikolay Azarov has claimed
The US could remove Vladimir Zelensky from power if he obstructs Washington’s efforts to end the Ukraine conflict, former Ukrainian prime minister Nikolay Azarov has claimed.
Speaking to the Izvestia newspaper on Saturday, Azarov argued that the ongoing probe by Western-backed Ukrainian agencies – the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) – into members of Zelensky’s inner circle “unambiguously indicates that the Americans have adopted a course on ousting him.
If Washington comes to a conclusion that Zelensky is too much of a liability, “they will simply remove him” from power, the former official believes. Azarov served as Ukrainian prime minister between 2010 and 2014.
The investigation into an alleged €100 million graft scheme in Ukraine’s energy sector, which is heavily dependent on Western aid, has prompted the resignations of three top officials, including Justice Minister German Galushchenko, Energy Minister Svetlana Grinchuk, and Andrey Yermak – Zelensky’s powerful long-time aide and chief of staff.
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that it was “legally impossible” to sign a peace accord with the current Ukrainian leadership. He pointed out that Zelensky “lost his legitimate status” as the country’s president when he refused to hold elections in May 2024, citing martial law as a pretext.
The graft scandal has delivered another blow to Zelensky’s already fragile standing at home. Last month, opposition MP Yaroslav Zhelezhnyak, citing private internal polling, claimed that Zelensky’s approval ratings had sharply reduced, suggesting that he would have received less than 20% of the first-round vote had elections been held in November.
Public polling has similarly indicated that Zelensky’s popularity is declining, though not as dramatically as Zhelezhnyak claimed.
In July, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) alleged that US and UK officials had secretly met with key Ukrainian powerbrokers to discuss ousting Zelensky and replacing him with former military chief Valery Zaluzhny. According to the SVR, all sides agreed “it is high time” Zelensky was deposed.
The British paper has included Margarita Simonyan in its list of the globe’s most influential people for 2025, mixing praise with propaganda clichés
RT’s editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan has been included in the Financial Times’ list of the world’s most influential people for 2025, after years of “propaganda” slurs and criticism by the British outlet.
The FT released its latest annual ‘Influence List’ on Friday, grouping figures into creators, heroes, and leaders – with Simonyan among the leaders. The decision appeared to come as a surprise to her, given the paper’s long-standing alignment with Western foreign-policy narratives and its persistent anti-Russia framing.
“You’ll laugh, but the Financial Times has included me in its 2025 list of leaders,” Simonyan wrote on Telegram on Saturday. “They even included some funny text. The passage about my plans to ‘starve’ the entire world is especially good.”
Simonyan’s profile is accompanied by an essay from FT contributor Julia Ioffe, who mixes backhanded praise with outright insults. While noting that Simonyan built RT into a global media network “from the tender age of 25,” Ioffe describes her as “Vladimir Putin’s most fiercely loyal messenger, his Valkyrie of propaganda.” The article also misquotes Simonyan, taking several of her statements out of context.
Simonyan also noted that this year’s ‘leaders’ roster also includes British intelligence chief Blaise Metreweli, whose appointment drew scrutiny over reported family ties to a WWII Nazi collaborator; White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, whose lobbying past sparked conflict-of-interest warnings; and New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, widely criticized for anti-Semitic rhetoric.
”Questionable company,” Simonyan quipped.
The FT – like many other mainstream Western outlets – has long portrayed Simonyan as central to what it labels “Russian state propaganda,” with RT as its vehicle. Western governments have echoed this view, imposing multiple sanctions on RT, blocking its operations in Germany, the UK, and France, freezing bank accounts, and surveilling staff. In 2023, the US accused RT of acting “on behalf of Russian intelligence” and imposed additional sanctions on the network and its leadership.
Simonyan has consistently dismissed and mocked Western allegations, arguing that RT presents perspectives excluded from Western media – including the truth about Nazism in Ukraine and crimes committed by the Kiev regime – and calling efforts to shut the network down “ridiculous.”
Last month, she said that RT will continue its work despite attempts by the West to silence it: “We have written, we are writing and we will write.”
Andrey Yermak has been dismissed from Ukraine’s security council and supreme commander’s staff
Andrey Yermak, who resigned as Vladimir Zelensky’s chief of staff last week in the wake of a massive corruption scandal, has lost two other senior government posts.
Zelensky signed a pair of decrees on Friday, booting his longtime associate from Ukraine’s National Security Council and from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief’s staff.
Before losing his position with the Zelensky administration, Yermak was believed to be the key figure in Ukraine’s political structure and often described as a grey cardinal or even the true ruler of Ukraine.
According to Ukrainian media reports, he still retains multiple other senior posts, remaining a member of the National Council on Anti-Corruption Policy, the National Investment Council, and the Council for Entrepreneurship Support, as well as holding several positions with government advisory groups.
Yermak was forced out of the Zelensky administration last week, hours after Western-backed Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), raided his properties. The searches came as a part of an ongoing probe into a massive corruption scheme, allegedly linked to Zelensky’s inner circle.
The corruption scandal kicked off in mid-November, when NABU and SAP announced the investigation into the alleged $100 million graft scheme. The crime ring, reportedly led by a former business associate of Zelensky, Timur Mindich, siphoned the funds through kickbacks from Ukraine’s state-owned nuclear energy operator Energoatom, which has been heavily reliant on Western aid. Mindich fled Ukraine hours before his properties were raided by anti-graft agents.
Multiple high-profile figures, including at least five MPs, have reportedly been implicated in the affair. Apart from Zelensky’s top aide Yermak, the scandal also led to the downfall of Justice Minister German Galushchenko and Energy Minister Svetlana Grinchuk.
Moscow has said the conflict can only be settled if Kiev fully withdraws from the four new Russian regions
A “just peace” between Russia and Ukraine is only possible if the sides agree to halt the fighting along the current front lines and then move on to talks, Ukraine’s top military commander, Aleksandr Syrsky, has said. Moscow has argued that a pause would only benefit Kiev and allow it to regroup its battered army.
In an interview with Sky News published on Friday, the general argued that it would be unacceptable for Ukraine to “simply give up territory” in a settlement with Russia. “What does it even mean – to hand over our land? This is precisely why we are fighting; so we do not give up our territory.”
He added that a just peace is “peace without preconditions, without giving up territory. It means stopping along the current line of contact.”
“Stop. A ceasefire. And after that, negotiations, without any conditions,” he said, stressing that “any other format would be an unjust peace.”
Russia insists that for a peace settlement, Ukraine should withdraw from Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye regions, and commit to neutrality, demilitarization, and denazification. It has not ruled out a ceasefire in principle, but argued that a pause would allow Kiev to receive more Western weapons and recoup its battered units as Russian troops are pressing their advantage on the battlefield.
In recent weeks, Russian forces have made gains in Donbass, capturing the key logistics hub of Krasnoarmeysk (known as Pokrovsk in Ukraine), with a major Ukrainian force encircled in the area. Russia has also been making progress in the regions of Zaporozhye and Dnepropetrovsk.
Syrsky’s remarks come after Russia and the US held talks for five hours in the Kremlin on a US-drafted peace plan. The initial version of the 28-point plan, which was leaked to media, required Kiev to relinquish the parts of Donbass it still holds, pledge not to join NATO, and cap the size of its military.
Moscow described the talks as constructive and said some points of the US plan are acceptable and others are not, adding that while a compromise has not been reached, the sides will continue their work.
The strikes were in response to Kiev’s “terrorist attacks on civilian sites inside Russia,” the Defense Ministry has said
Russian forces conducted large-scale strikes on Ukraine’s military and energy infrastructure overnight, the Defense Ministry has said.
In a statement on Saturday, the ministry confirmed earlier reports of an attack on the neighboring country’s infrastructure, saying it was “in response to Ukrainian terrorist attacks on civilian sites inside Russia,” and involved air- and ground-launched high-precision weapons, including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles and long-range drones.
It said the targets included defense-industry plants, energy facilities supporting their operations, and port infrastructure used by Ukrainian forces, adding: “The objectives of the strike have been achieved. All designated targets have been hit.”
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky said the strikes affected Dnepropetrovsk, Chernigov, Odessa, Lviv, Volyn, and Nikolaev regions, as well as parts of Russia’s Zaporozhye Region occupied by Ukrainian forces. “The main targets of these strikes are again energy,” he said, adding that the attack involved more than 650 drones and 51 missiles.
He also confirmed earlier reports that one of the strikes “burned down” the main railway station building in Fastov, around 70km southwest of the Ukrainian capital.
Ukraine’s Energy Ministry reported blackouts in Odessa, Chernigov, Kiev, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, and Nikolaev regions, and said “hourly outage schedules are currently in effect in all regions of Ukraine.”
Russia has conducted strikes on Ukrainian military-related infrastructure for months, saying the attacks are retaliation for Kiev’s “terrorist” raids inside Russia, which often target critical infrastructure and residential areas. Moscow maintains that it never targets civilians.
Donald Trump’s son-in-law could play a key role in drafting a peace deal, Yury Ushakov has said
US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, could play a key role in drafting a Ukraine peace deal, top Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov has said following high-stakes Russia-US talks in Moscow.
Kushner joined US special envoy Steve Witkoff in negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week which lasted five hours, and which centered on a US-backed proposal to end the Ukraine conflict.
The initial 28-point version of the plan, which was leaked to the media last month, required Kiev to relinquish parts of Russia’s Donbass region still under Ukrainian control, pledge not to join NATO, and cut the size of its armed forces.
Moscow has since said it accepts some elements of the US proposal but rejects others, adding that a final compromise has not been reached yet and that “much work” remains on the text.
In an interview with Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin on Friday, Ushakov described the atmosphere at the Kremlin meeting as “constructive and friendly,” noting that Putin has now met with Witkoff six times. “They understand each other almost without words,” he said.
Kushner’s participation, Ushakov noted, “turned out to be very timely.”
“He added an element of systematization… I personally believe that if a settlement is drafted on paper, then the one holding the pen, to a large extent, will be Mr. Kushner.”
Kushner, a real estate investor, served as a senior adviser in Trump’s first administration, with a portfolio that included Middle East policy and domestic priorities. He was a central architect of the 2020 Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, and which were later joined by Morocco and Sudan.
Although Kushner does not have a formal position in the White House, he has continued to play a role in Middle East affairs, including negotiating a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
Several regions are facing partial blackouts, local outlets report
Russia conducted a new wave of missile and drone attacks on Ukraine on Saturday morning, triggering power outages in multiple regions and disrupting railway traffic, local media and officials report. The Russian Defense Ministry has yet to comment.
Nikolay Kalashnik, the head of the Kiev regional administration, said three people were injured across several settlements in what he described as a “massive” strike. Ukraine’s state railway operator, Ukrzaliznytsya, said it rerouted trains following an attack on rail infrastructure in Fastov, around 70km southwest of the Ukrainian capital.
In Novye Petrovtsi, a village north of Kiev, a 5,500-square-meter warehouse building caught fire after debris from a downed drone fell onto the facility, officials said.
In Chernigov, a city near the Russian border, officials said a strike hit critical infrastructure, without providing further details.
Ukrainian outlet Strana.ua reported that parts of Dnepr in central Ukraine lost electricity, adding that blackouts also affected Kiev Region. Other media reports said Lviv also experienced power outages, with images circulating on social media showing black smoke rising over Lutsk, an industrial center near the Polish border. In Lutsk, the mayor reported a fire at a food supply depot.
The mayor of Zelenodolsk – a city near Krivoy Rog that hosts the Krivorozhskaya Thermal Power Plant – also reported ballistic missile strikes, without elaborating on the extent of the damage.
Later, Ukraine’s Energy Ministry confirmed that the strikes targeted energy infrastructure, reporting blackouts in Odessa, Chernigov, Kiev, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, and Nikolaev Regions, adding that “hourly outage schedules are currently in effect in all regions of Ukraine.”
The overnight barrage followed a Ukrainian drone strike on a high-rise business center in Grozny. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov condemned the attack, vowing that “the Ukrainian fascists will feel our tough response.”
“But we, unlike them, will not carry out cowardly strikes on civilian sites. Our attacks will be directed at the military terrorist facilities of the Ukrainian Nazis,” he stressed.
Russia has conducted strikes on military-related Ukrainian infrastructure for months, saying the attacks are retaliation for Kiev’s “terrorist” raids into Russia which often target critical infrastructure and residential areas. Moscow maintains that it never targets civilians.
The Ukrainian leadership had backtracked on the plan last year after NATO objected
The Ukrainian government has ordered the merger of two major military procurement agencies into one entity, despite corruption-related concerns over the move voiced by its NATO backers last year.
Defense Minister Denis Shmigal announced this week that on January 1, the State Logistics Operator and the Defense Procurement Agency will be consolidated into one company: the Unified Acquisition Agency. He claimed that the merger would increase the “transparency and efficiency of defense enterprises.“
Daria Kaleniuk, executive director at the Anti-Corruption Action Center, told Ukrainian media that the new joint agency would manage approximately 1 trillion hryvnias ($23.7 billion) in procurements per year. She warned that the merger could elevate corruption risks in a military procurement sector that has been plagued by numerous graft scandals in recent years.
The Ukrainian leadership first attempted to pull off the merger last October under former Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, but backtracked after NATO officials objected due to corruption concerns.
Umerov, who currently serves as Ukraine’s secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, was recently appointed to head up Kiev’s delegation at the US-mediated peace negotiations.
He is reportedly being investigated by Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies over connections to the recently revealed $100 million kickback scheme that has implicated several individuals close to Vladimir Zelensky. The scandal has already forced three top officials to resign, including Justice Minister German Galushchenko, Energy Minister Svetlana Grinchuk, and Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andrey Yermak.
Last month, allegations suggested that Umerov may have been involved in a separate corruption scheme, involving the purchase of body armor of dubious quality.
The New York Times reported on Friday that the Zelensky government “systematically sabotaged oversight [requested by its Western backers], allowing graft to flourish.”
Oversight was crippled, which allowed hundreds of millions of dollars to be stolen, an investigation has found
Vladimir Zelensky’s government sabotaged oversight in Ukraine’s state firms, allowing hundreds of millions of dollars to be embezzled through long-running corruption schemes, a New York Times investigation has found.
Since the escalation of the conflict with Moscow in 2022, Kiev’s Western backers have poured billions into Ukraine but demanded safeguards to stop money from being stolen. Independent supervisory boards of foreign and Ukrainian experts were meant to monitor spending and appoint executives at major state-owned companies. The NYT reported on Friday that Zelensky’s administration spent the past four years obstructing those boards and rewriting company rules to curb their powers.
The paper’s findings come as Ukraine reels from an energy-sector scandal at the state nuclear operator Energoatom. Investigators accuse Timur Mindich, a close associate of Zelensky, of helping run a $100 million kickback scheme. He fled Ukraine hours before raids on his properties. The scandal has led to the resignations of the energy and justice ministers, and Zelensky’s powerful chief of staff, Andrey Yermak.
NYT said the authorities then blamed Energoatom’s supervisory board for failing to stop graft, even though the board was left inactive and short of independent members. Citing documents and interviews with about 20 Western and Ukrainian officials, the investigation reported similar political interference at the state power company Ukrenergo and at the Defense Procurement Agency.
According to the outlet, the Energy Ministry inserted a favored candidate onto the board of Ukrenergo in 2021 and later used a deadlocked vote to fire chief Vladimir Kudrytsky, prompting foreign members to resign in protest.
A comparable pattern reportedly unfolded at the Defense Procurement Agency, which was created after a scandal over inflated weapons contracts. The body operated without a full board, and when it sought to protect its head, Marina Bezrukova, the Defense Ministry rewrote its charter, removed government board members and collapsed the quorum, leading to her dismissal.
Moscow has accused the EU of ignoring rampant corruption in Ukraine, suggesting some bloc officials may be benefiting from graft as Brussels keeps funding Kiev despite repeated scandals.
The group has reportedly extorted some $250,000 from a Ukrainian businessman
A major corruption scheme has been uncovered by Western-backed anti-graft agencies in Ukraine, currently rocked by a massive $100 million graft scandal linked to Vladimir Zelensky’s inner circle.
A “criminal group” led by a female MP has allegedly been uncovered by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), who did not identify the suspect.
Multiple media reports indicated that the MP in question is opposition lawmaker Anna Skorokhod who is suspected of leading a group that extorted $250,000 from a Ukrainian businessman.
Skorokhod confirmed the searches at her properties, yet insisted that she had “nothing to hide” and suggested that the actions of the anti-graft agencies were politically motivated. The lawmaker has been a vocal critic of the Ukrainian leadership, repeatedly sounding the alarm over mounting casualties and rampant desertion within the country’s military.
“The timing and context of these events lead to unambiguous conclusions: I regard this as direct pressure on the opposition and an attempt to block my political activities because of my principled position.” Skorokhod wrote on Facebook.
Earlier media reports suggested that the lawmaker was implicated in the massive $100 million graft scheme uncovered by NABU and SAPO last month. Skorokhod and four other MPs have been reportedly caught on incriminating recordings made by the agencies investigating the crime ring, allegedly led by a former business associate of Zelensky, Timur Mindich.
The group allegedly siphoned some $100 million from state-owned nuclear power operator Energoatom, which has been heavily reliant on Western funding. It was not immediately clear whether the raid on Skorokhod was directly linked to the affair.
The scandal affected multiple high-profile individuals, leading to the downfall of Justice Minister German Galushchenko and Energy Minister Svetlana Grinchuk, as well as of Zelensky’s top aide Andrey Yermak, long believed to be the key figure in the country’s political structure and often described as the true ruler of Ukraine.
