Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has proposed appointing Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate, to lead the Office of the President. The announcement was made on January 2, alongside the confirmation that Andriy Yermak’s tenure in the role has come to an end. Yermak had headed the Presidential Office since February 2020.

Budanov represents a new kind of leadership shaped by wartime realities. He has devoted his entire professional career to military intelligence. Since 2007, he has served in special units of the Main Intelligence Directorate, taking part in a number of classified operations, including missions carried out in Russian-occupied Crimea.

In 2020, Budanov was appointed deputy director of a department within Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service. Just months later, in August of the same year, he was named head of the Main Intelligence Directorate. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion, Budanov also assumed leadership of the Coordination штаб responsible for prisoners of war and became head of the Intelligence Committee under the President of Ukraine.

In a December interview with LB.ua, when asked whether he intended to run for president, Budanov said he did not consider political ambitions a priority and had no plans to pursue a political career. He emphasized that Ukraine is currently facing far more urgent challenges, adding that future decisions would depend on how circumstances evolve.

Yermak’s dismissal follows a series of high-profile developments. On the morning of November 28, law enforcement officers conducted searches at his residence. No official explanation was provided. However, Christopher Miller, the Kyiv correspondent for the Financial Times, reported that the investigative actions could be linked to the so-called “Midas” case — a corruption probe involving Energoatom, Ukraine’s state-owned nuclear energy company.

Earlier, Yaroslav Zhelezniak, a member of parliament from the Voice party, claimed that Yermak allegedly appeared in the so-called “Mindych tapes” under the code name “Ali Baba.”

Later that same day, President Zelenskyy formally announced Yermak’s resignation, marking the beginning of a new phase in Ukraine’s political configuration — one increasingly defined by security considerations, intelligence leadership, and governance under wartime conditions.