Zelenskyy reshapes his inner circle as Arakhamia, Budanov and Lytvyn gain influence
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INNER CIRCLE: Presidential Office head Kyrylo Budanov (left), Servant of the People faction leader David Arakhamia (behind the president) and Presidential Office media adviser Dmytro Lytvyn (right) are now among the president’s closest confidants. (Photo: NV collage)
NV examined the workings of Ukraine’s presidential offices,
speaking with informed lawmakers and experts to determine whose views carry the
most weight with Volodymyr Zelenskyy after Andriy Yermak’s dismissal.
“The president used to listen on only one channel. Now he’s
listening on multiple channels,” a member of Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People
parliamentary faction told NV in early August.
For several years, Zelenskyy listened only to Yermak, his
chief of staff, the lawmaker said. But the circle of people the president
speaks with and asks for advice has grown somewhat since December 2025, when
the nearly all-powerful “green cardinal” left the presidential offices on
Kyiv’s Bankova Street.
The vacuum did not last long. It was gradually filled by the
new presidential chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, and presidential media adviser
Dmytro Lytvyn. But the biggest beneficiary of Yermak’s dismissal was David
Arakhamia, the head of the Servant of the People faction in parliament,
according to opposition European Solidarity lawmaker Viktoria Siumar and
several NV sources among Servant of the People lawmakers.
“Is Arakhamia’s voice now the loudest in Zelenskyy’s circle?
Definitely not. But is he among the people closest to the president?
Definitely,” one of those sources said.
Yermak previously “suffocated” Arakhamia politically by
limiting his influence over Zelenskyy, political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko
said. He attributed that effort to competition between the two men for contacts
with American partners.
“Yermak turned Zelenskyy against Arakhamia,” Fesenko said.
“But that was temporary, because later Arakhamia was needed again — someone had
to get various bills through parliament.”
In the nine months since Yermak’s dismissal, a new circle of
informal but influential advisers has formed around Zelenskyy.
“Yermak has been replaced by a collective Yermak,” Yaroslav
Yurchyshyn, a lawmaker from the opposition Holos party, told NV with mild
irony.
The president’s influential circle is not limited to three
officials, however. Zelenskyy also considers the views of several other people.
The president of parliament
Arakhamia was always one of the few politicians who retained
access to Zelenskyy despite the presence of a powerful presidential chief of
staff.
“Yermak centralized everything around himself,” an
influential source in the president’s party recalled. “But David kept the lines
of communication open anyway. Andriy Borysovych strongly disliked him because
of that, because he never knew what David might say.”
For a time, Arakhamia had to limit his influence to
parliament, which ultimately proved to be his salvation. The presidential
administration could not secure votes for Zelenskyy’s initiatives on its own,
while the Servant of the People faction leader could persuade even opposition
lawmakers.
“When I was the president’s representative in parliament,
until December 2023, I saw that David attended practically every meeting on
every issue as the leader of the parliamentary majority, whose votes determined
a great many decisions,” Servant of the People lawmaker Fedir Venislavskyi
recalled.
Other members of Venislavskyi’s faction who spoke to NV
anonymously said Arakhamia has long presented himself as the indispensable
intermediary with the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament. In that
arrangement, formal parliamentary leader Ruslan Stefanchuk, also a Servant of
the People member, was and remains largely a figurehead.
Venislavskyi said Arakhamia’s creativity enables him to find
common ground with the various parliamentary factions. A source close to
Arakhamia called it a set of “unique negotiating skills” and described him as a
quick thinker who offers a range of options.
Yermak’s departure gave the “creative negotiator” greater
political weight. Among other things, Arakhamia was returned to the negotiating
team.
The Servant of the People faction leader quickly established
relationships with Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and U.S.
presidential envoy Steve Witkoff. During the Ukrainian Breakfast at the World
Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2026, Witkoff publicly patted
Arakhamia on the shoulder and called him his new friend.
Zelenskyy also recently included the leader of his
parliamentary team in a trip to Washington for the funeral of U.S. Sen. Lindsey
Graham.
But international affairs are only one area in which
Arakhamia’s position has grown stronger.
Three parliamentary sources, including a politician close to
Zelenskyy, told NV that the Servant of the People faction leader was one of the
driving forces behind Mykhailo Fedorov’s removal from the Defense Ministry.
An informed Servant of the People lawmaker said Arakhamia
had tried to persuade lawmakers before the “personnel coup” that Fedorov was
“no saint,” offering various arguments intended to “discredit” him.
“Drone contracts had something to do with it,” another
Servant of the People source said of Arakhamia’s actions. Even on condition of
anonymity, however, the lawmaker offered no specific evidence to support the
claim.
Yermak has been replaced by a collective Yermak
Siumar said Arakhamia is now “trying to influence the
security agencies and increase his economic clout through his own companies and
those of his partners, including in the defense industry.”
“And he has an ace up his sleeve — parliament, which he
influences,” the European Solidarity lawmaker said. “Given the makeup of the
majority, it is unlikely anyone else could do the work he does. He has a
particular style. But he really does have partners.”
“Because Arakhamia is the president of parliament,” one of
NV’s Servant of the People sources joked. “But he hasn’t become a second
Yermak, as some people write. He is completely different: The president gives David
more assignments, while he sought Yermak’s advice more often.”
A source close to Arakhamia said Zelenskyy mainly consults
him on negotiations, relations with the Americans and parliament.
Siumar believes Arakhamia wants to preserve his influence in
the future and is therefore interested in various political projects and
figures capable of creating and leading them. She cited Vitaliy Kim, the former
head of Mykolaiv Oblast who became veterans affairs minister in the new
government, and Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov.
Terekhov met with Zelenskyy in July amid a government
reshuffle. Several news outlets at the time described the mayor as a possible
candidate for prime minister. But a source close to Zelenskyy told NV that
Terekhov’s visit to the presidential offices was largely accidental.
“Danylo Hetmantsev, a Servant of the People lawmaker close
to Arakhamia, then turned that meeting into a two-week discussion on his
Telegram channels: Terekhov had supposedly been invited to Bankova and was now
in the big leagues,” the source said.
In reality, the source said, the meeting was arranged with a
possible Terekhov-Kim party in mind, a project Arakhamia has reportedly been
working on for some time. Such a party could potentially attract voters who
previously supported the pro-Russian Opposition Platform — For Life.
“People from Kharkiv pitched the idea to Arakhamia,
including billionaire and former lawmaker Ihor Abramovych,” a source on
Zelenskyy’s team said. “He picked it up just for fun, then saw that it was
working.”
NV sent Arakhamia several questions about his stronger role
in government since Yermak’s departure and the possible connection between his
actions and Fedorov’s dismissal. NV also asked how he manages to secure votes
in parliament while Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau suspects some
Servant of the People lawmakers — the “Kisil group” — of accepting bribes for
votes.
Arakhamia responded briefly.
“I have led the Servant of the People political party’s
parliamentary faction since August 2019,” he said. “Throughout my time on the
team, my position, assignments and responsibilities have remained unchanged.
The Verkhovna Rada is working and making decisions in the most difficult times.
The hardest trials have fallen during our term, and in my view, this parliament
is handling them with dignity.”
Political analyst Ihor Reiterovych called Arakhamia one of
the country’s key political figures and said his influence had grown
considerably.
“But I would call him a balancing force,” Reiterovych added.
“He is a key negotiator, but he will absolutely not become another Yermak,
because much of Yermak’s power was based on monopolizing access to Zelenskyy.”
The other members of the trio
Politicians and experts who spoke with NV identified Budanov
as another central figure in the president’s inner circle.
An influential source in the president’s party said the
former head of Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence agency and Zelenskyy handle
a particular set of military and political issues together. But the new
presidential chief of staff operates very differently from his predecessor.
Yermak followed Zelenskyy on virtually every trip. Budanov
does not. When the president attended a meeting of the coalition of the willing
in Paris in July, for example, his chief of staff remained in Kyiv.
“Budanov doesn’t follow Zelenskyy around like a shadow,” the
source said.
Siumar believes Arakhamia competes to some extent with
Budanov over communication with parliament, where the chief of staff has been
working to build relationships.
Venislavskyi said the former intelligence chief personally
speaks with numerous lawmakers from different parliamentary factions and
groups. They have no trouble gaining access to the presidential offices, unlike
under Yermak, when only a select group of lawmakers could visit.
“You could count them on the fingers of one hand, or two at
most,” the Servant of the People lawmaker recalled. “Communication has
definitely changed. It is now very close, including when the agenda or the need
to pass particular laws is being discussed.”
Budanov has managed to earn respect even among the
opposition, Venislavskyi said.
Reiterovych also pointed to the former intelligence chief’s
influence over the president, though he described their relationship as
primarily formal.
Several lawmakers and NV sources identified Lytvyn as the
third key figure close to Zelenskyy. Lytvyn speaks with the president every
day, receives assignments from him and turns them into statements and written
material. He also shares his views on current events.
“Dmytro’s role is more about carrying out Zelenskyy’s
assignments than resolving issues,” Yurchyshyn said. “But because he is
responsible for communications, he naturally plays a fairly substantial role in
shaping the president’s position itself.”
Fesenko suggested that Lytvyn may carry the greatest weight
in terms of direct influence over Zelenskyy and his emotions because his job
requires him to speak with the president every day. But Budanov and Arakhamia
unquestionably have greater institutional influence, the analyst said.
Military and security officials
Beyond the “main trio,” Zelenskyy listens to several other
people on particular issues.
Military affairs are, as expected, handled by Pavlo Palisa,
a former brigade commander who became a deputy presidential chief of staff
while Yermak was still in office. According to NV sources, the brigadier
general was brought into the presidential administration to provide a channel
of military information independent of Oleksandr Syrskyi, who was then
commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces.
“Palisa had been saying for a long time that we weren’t
going to get anywhere with this arrangement involving Syrskyi and this method
of waging the war, because we couldn’t sustain it,” a source familiar with the
situation said.
Syrskyi also communicated closely with the president until
his dismissal on July 22. His successor as commander-in-chief, Mykhailo
Drapatyi, has now taken his place in every sense.
Yurchyshyn noted that Oleh Tatarov, a deputy presidential
chief of staff and former subject of investigations by the National
Anti-Corruption Bureau, also retains considerable influence in Zelenskyy’s
circle. Tatarov continues to oversee the law enforcement and judicial systems
from the presidential offices.
“He solves problems there,” the Holos lawmaker said. “He is
a kind of crisis manager.”
NV has also learned that Zelenskyy likes the new head of
Ukraine’s SBU Security Service, Oleksandr Poklad.
“The president values his particular qualities,” an informed
source told NV.
Yurchyshyn said Poklad has been assigned to handle numerous
matters, including domestic political issues. These include dealing with
opponents and analyzing and understanding civic movements “that are becoming
increasingly influential.”
“But Poklad is effectively an extension of Tatarov’s
position,” Yurchyshyn added. “Tatarov recommended him and works closely with
him.”
A circle of advisers
Reiterovych described the current arrangement around the
president as a group of people whose voices carry roughly equal weight.
“In other words, the president listens to many people and
speaks with many people,” the political analyst said. “And after Yermak’s
dismissal, he became much more open to that communication in general.”
An influential Servant of the People member told NV that
Zelenskyy, as before, still makes decisions himself. But the president now
appears to be trying to expand the circle of people whose views interest him,
the source said.
“The president’s decision to choose former Naftogaz head
Serhiy Koretskyi as prime minister also shows that he wants to expand the
circle of people who will offer and voice ideas, rather than simply listen to
him,” the source said.
“I can’t say there is anyone who alone has the president’s
ear and formulates things for him,” the source added. “It seems to me that,
internally, Zelenskyy wants to prevent that from happening again after the
situation with Yermak.”
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