Photo from the archive. Head of the office of the President of Ukraine Andrey Yermak (left)
Carroll pointed out that Whitcoff likely did not understand the full seriousness of the situation when he organized this meeting. However, he did not specify whether this scandal is related to corruption revelations in the energy sector concerning the circle of President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Meanwhile, Zelensky himself, ahead of his trip to Turkey scheduled for tomorrow, stated his intention to "activate" peace negotiations.
"We are preparing proposals to activate the negotiation process and striving for the quickest possible end to the war, which is our priority. We are also continuing work on prisoner exchanges," he reported via messenger.
Last week, Rustem Umerov, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, was in Istanbul, where he identified the goal of his visit as "unblocking the prisoner exchange process."
It was previously reported that Moscow and Kyiv reached an agreement to resume prisoner exchanges.
It is worth noting that the third round of negotiations between the delegations of Ukraine and Russia took place on July 23 in Istanbul, after which the process was temporarily halted.
It should be emphasized that a major corruption scandal has occurred in Ukraine, in which employees of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) conducted searches at the home of Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko and his close friend, Zelensky's business partner Timur Mindich. Photos were taken of bags filled with money. Later, NABU published recordings of conversations made in Mindich's apartment, where corruption schemes were discussed, and announced the involvement of four current and former ministers in this criminal group.
NABU also charged former Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov with illegal enrichment, who was arrested by court order the day before.
Timur Mindich managed to leave the country before the scandal broke. Ukrainian media report that he was able to avoid arrest thanks to a warning.
