Personal “victories,” misunderstandings with the White House, and a conflict with Kellogg: how Yermak complicated Ukraine’s relations with Trump’s team

Personal “victories,” misunderstandings with the White House, and a conflict with Kellogg: how Yermak complicated Ukraine’s relations with Trump’s team

Former head of the Office of the President Andriy Yermak, after the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, maintained an informal channel of communication with then-White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. Ukrainian officials described this communication as problematic.

This is reported by Kyiv Independent.

According to the publication, the communications channel emerged after Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, when President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Yermak to establish contacts with senior U.S. officials. Two Ukrainian officials told Kyiv Independent that Yermak and Priebus often spoke in the following months—until Yermak’s dismissal after the search of his residence by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine in November 2025.

Ukrainian officials stated that this channel was more harmful than helpful. According to the publication, this was also confirmed by a U.S. government official. One senior Ukrainian official explained that Yermak often misunderstood Priebus and the American way of communication. In his words, she sometimes agreed to do something or help arrange a meeting only out of courtesy.

“Susie would tell him, ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ when she was asked for something, and Yermak would then go to the president and present it as his own victory,” a senior Ukrainian official said.

According to the interlocutor, Yermak treated such replies as concrete commitments and his own successes, and reported them to Zelensky as personal achievements. The official said these misunderstandings caused “a few problems” that hampered Ukraine’s relations with the Trump administration.

A source close to the Trump administration told Kyiv Independent that the conflict in the Oval Office largely resulted from Yermak misreading moods in the White House. According to the source, former U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations (sic) Kurt Kellogg tried to convince Zelensky to avoid the meeting, but Yermak rejected his advice.

The same source claims that in the middle or late 2025 year, as corruption accusations around Yermak began to surface, he deliberately weakened Kellogg’s position to foster closer ties with his successor Stephen Vitkoff.

“At some point he simply stopped replying to Kellogg, even though Kellogg still held the official position. He deliberately undermined him to get closer to Vitkoff,” the associate said.

According to the source, Yermak previously also maintained active contacts with Joe Biden administration national security adviser Jake Sullivan. “Yermak took it as friendship,” the associate said, adding that Sullivan did not see it that way.

Another senior Ukrainian official said that Yermak and Priebus “were not friends,” and that their communication channel was “more problematic than truly meaningful.”

Kyiv Independent reached out to Yermak for comment, but as of publication he had not responded.