Former Zelenskyy spokeswoman says Yermak makes her fear for her life and calls him "dangerous person"

Yuliia Mendel, former spokeswoman for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has described Andrii Yermak, former head of the President's Office, as "a very dangerous person" and said he makes her fear for her life.

Source: Mendel in an interview with Radio Liberty

Quote: "Right now, as I'm saying this, I'm scared, and every day I pray and thank God that I'm alive, because Andrii [Yermak] is a very dangerous person. He is a very dangerous person. And those who know him will understand."

Details: Asked what exactly she fears Yermak might do to her, Mendel said he has "many capabilities".

Quote from Mendel: "From a basic smear campaign using political means, launching all sorts of accusations against anyone who goes against him – calling them pro-Russian, traitors and so on – to the fact that he has a certain influence over law enforcement, where criminal cases are opened out of thin air – treason out of thin air, and so on. I've seen officials… I'll tell you, one official, when she was leaving, was shaking as she smoked; she looked at me and said: 'Yuliia, this is not how you treat people.' And believe me, many people have left like that, and so many lives have been destroyed because of Andrii."

More details: She also claimed that in 2019, Yermak asked one US political strategist how he could become president.

"Since 2019, Andrii has been building his own power structure… I know that in 2019, Andrii Yermak, while in the United States, spoke to a political consultant and asked how he could become president of his country. So Yermak's ambitions are huge," Mendel said.

Mendel further claimed that Yermak had often misled the president, distorting the information he passed on to Zelenskyy or presenting it in a way advantageous to himself. She asserted that he was the one who convinced Zelenskyy that the full-scale invasion would not happen.

"This [the claim that Yermak assured Zelenskyy that Russia would not attack] did not come from the media. I still have a lot of contacts. More than one person with direct knowledge of the events told me this," Mendel concluded.

She spoke in very general terms, referring to "her experience" and "her contacts", but provided no details to substantiate her claims.

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