Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff to Ukraine’s president, was for years widely seen as the second-most powerful person in the country.
His resignation — announced on Friday amid a mushrooming government corruption scandal — leaves the most powerful figure, President Volodymyr Zelensky, without a staunch political ally at a particularly delicate moment. Nearly four years since Russia invaded, Ukraine is on the defensive in a war of attrition, engaged in negotiations with the United States, and Mr. Zelensky’s government is under increasing pressure from the opposition.
In particular, Mr. Yermak’s resignation also casts fresh doubt on the prospects of peace talks, in which Mr. Yermak had played a key role.
Mr. Yermak, 54, had since the start of Russia’s invasion stood alongside Mr. Zelensky, acting as a savvy power broker and political enforcer.
The two men first crossed paths in the world of entertainment, where Mr. Zelensky was a comedian and Mr. Yermak a film producer and media lawyer specializing in intellectual property rights. By the time Mr. Zelensky came to power in 2019, their relationship dated nearly a decade.
Mr. Yermak was initially hired as a presidential aide focused on foreign policy issues. In February 2020, he became chief of staff and a towering figure in Ukraine — albeit one who rubbed many people the wrong way for being an abrasive, if not intimidating, micromanager.
His relationship with Mr. Zelensky deepened after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. The two men became inseparable.
Mr. Yermak appeared alongside the president in defiant selfie videos filmed on the streets of Kyiv when bombs began falling on the capital. He slept in the same underground bunker near Mr. Zelensky, and the president consulted him at all hours. He traveled to foreign capitals with Mr. Zelensky, towering above the president in military garb.
In Ukrainian politics, Mr. Yermak became a feared hatchet man known for removing any official who spoke out of turn or became too popular, a potential rival to him or to Mr. Zelensky. He also absorbed criticism of the government over what was happening in the war, helping shield Mr. Zelensky.
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Mr. Yermak grew deeply unpopular in Ukraine. A March poll by the Razumkov Center, a Ukrainian research group, showed that only 17.5 percent of the respondents trusted him.
But Mr. Zelensky kept Mr. Yermak on, even after opposition lawmakers started calling for Mr. Yermak to resign over his close ties to figures in the corruption scandal, which erupted this month.
The scandal appeared to receded when the Trump administration abruptly put forward a plan to end the war.
Soon Mr. Yermak was leading Kyiv’s delegation in talks with U.S. officials in Geneva, seeking to soften provisions in a plan seen as overly favorable to Russia.
Those discussions were set to continue this week in Kyiv with the U.S. Army secretary, Daniel P. Driscoll. As of Thursday night, Mr. Yermak had signaled he expected to be present.
“The joint work of the Ukrainian and U.S. delegations will continue to build on the results achieved in Geneva,” he wrote on X. He added: “Just as we did in Geneva, we are now preparing for a constructive dialogue.”
The next morning, Mr. Yermak’s home was searched as part of the corruption investigation, in which the chief of staff has not been officially named.
Hours later, though, Mr. Zelensky announced that his aide had stepped down.
Kim Barker, Andrew E. Kramer and Oleksandr Chubko contributed reporting.
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