Andriy Bohdan’s short tenure as President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff was anything but boring.
A 43-year-old lawyer, Bohdan went from obscurity to being one of the most powerful people in Ukraine in a matter of weeks in early 2019. He ran Zelensky’s office for eight months.
He quit on Feb. 11, reportedly over a power struggle with other players in Zelensky’s immediate circle. He was succeeded by Andriy Yermak, an aide best known for his role as a middleman between Zelensky and associates of U.S. President Donald Trump in the pressure campaign that led to Trump’s impeachment trial.
Bohdan had a broad range of duties. For Zelensky, a celebrity-turned-politician, he was a savvy administrator who knew the intricacies of Ukraine’s government and politics.
Having taken charge of domestic policy, Bohdan not only controlled the president’s agenda, but coordinated the Cabinet’s ministers and oversaw the passing of bills in parliament. A number of swift reforms were passed during his tenure, giving the period the nickname “turbo regime,” a term closely associated with Bohdan.
While admirers praised his effectiveness and organizational skills, critics denounced Bohdan for his notorious disregard for the rules. He openly said that he valued results over procedures, even when it meant violating the law. His very appointment was a violation: as a former top official, he wasn’t allowed to hold public office under the lustration law punishing ex-officials from the era of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych. He did anyway.
Rapid rise
According to Bohdan, it was he who persuaded Zelensky to convert his fame into political capital and run for the highest office in the country.
The two have known each other since around 2014, having met “through common friends” — likely, through oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, who employed Bohdan as a lawyer. Zelensky’s company has been producing shows for Kolomoisky’s TV channel since 2012.
When Zelensky announced his surprise bid for the presidency in the last moments of 2018 and started a brisk three-month campaign, Bohdan’s name was still unknown to the wider public.
It was about a month before the March 31 first-round election when Ukrainian media started reporting that the de facto head of the campaign was Bohdan, the lawyer of Kolomoisky.
Bohdan avoided publicity during the campaign, appearing only once during the debates.
But when Zelensky won and was inaugurated on May 20, Bohdan headed his office.
His appointment was met with harsh criticism. As a former official of the Cabinet of Mykola Azarov, who was prime minister under President Yanukovych, Bohdan is subject to the lustration law and cannot hold top positions.
More importantly, Bohdan was seen as a sign that Kolomoisky calls the shots in Zelensky’s administration. This proved untrue.
Toxic connections
Bohdan had plenty of controversial connections. He worked for the government of Yanukovych, where he was in charge of anti-corruption policies — in a notoriously corrupt administration.
As a lawyer, Bohdan worked for Kolomoisky, a notoriously combative oligarch.
Right up until becoming Zelensky’s chief of staff, Bohdan represented Kolomoisky in his legal battle with the state over Privatbank, his former bank that was nationalized in 2016 after a $5.5-billion hole was found in its balance sheet. Kolomoisky is suing to get back the bank that he claims was stolen from him, while the bank is suing its former owners for the money allegedly stolen from it.
However, the oligarch didn’t succeed in getting the bank back during the eight months his former lawyer was in office. Instead, Kolomoisky’s relationship with the office turned sour in the fall of 2019. Several lawmakers from Zelensky’s party who are loyal to Kolomoisky have been voting against the party line and harshly criticizing Zelensky’s top allies — avoiding, however, touching Zelensky himself.
“Here I sit from dusk ‘till dawn, and fight many wars, including with my former clients,” Bohdan told the Kyiv Post in an Oct. 30 interview.
Bohdan quit as the fate of Privatbank was about to be decided in the parliament: In the coming weeks, lawmakers are expected to vote on a bill that would prohibit returning banks to former owners after nationalization.
President’s shadow… at first
In the first months of Zelensky’s term, Bohdan chaperoned the inexperienced president everywhere he went. He showed up at official meetings and traveled with Zelensky around Ukraine. He was often seen whispering in Zelensky’s ear during public appearances. A photo of the whispering became a popular meme.
Bohdan explained in a September interview with the BBC that he was whispering hints and ideas that Zelensky could use at the moment.
Andriy Bohdan (R), a former adviser to ex-Dnipropetrovsk Oblast governor and oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, speaks into the ear of then-presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelensky during the presidential debate with his rival, President Petro Poroshenko, at Olimpiysky Stadium in Kyiv on April 19, 2019. (Volodymyr Petrov)
His public activities halted in December.
Bohdan’s last major public event was the Normandy Format summit in Paris on Dec. 9. He made it memorable. Never shy of unconventional behavior, he stood behind Zelensky as the president was giving interviews outside the delegation’s hotel and, shivering and sticking his tongue out, sang the lyrics from a popular Ukrainian song: “It’s Cold.” It was his way to urge the president to end the interview and go inside.
Not a friend of media
After his appointment as chief of staff was met with criticism, Bohdan declared a cold war with the traditional media as a class.
“Classic journalists got used to perceiving themselves as the society,” Bohdan said this summer in a video comment to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. “But as our election campaign has proved, we communicate with society without mediators, without journalists.”
As if to prove his point and help discredit the traditional media, he and his deputy Kyrylo Tymoshenko played a prank on Ukrainian journalists, “leaking” Bohdan’s fake resignation letter in August. Journalists were infuriated when their scoop turned out to be a prank. Many condemned the administration for promoting disinformation. Bohdan wasn’t moved.
“We have to understand that politicians, including the U.S. president and Ukrainian president, communicate with their admirers directly, including via social media,” he told the Kyiv Post in October.
Bohdan gave only a handful of interviews during his tenure, including one to the Kyiv Post. In it, he attacked the newspaper for critical coverage of himself and the government.
The story that particularly vexed Bohdan was a report about a former Constitutional Court judge who claimed that Bohdan pressured him to vote in favor of Yanukovych in a key hearing in 2010. Bohdan dismissed it as a lie.
Effective manager with disregard for rules
Bohdan was open about his disregard for the rules when they got in the way of fast results. This was central to his dissatisfaction with Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk’s Cabinet of Ministers: He claimed the ministers were too timid.
Bohdan said that he encouraged new officials to violate procedural norms to get quick results but they were reluctant to do so.
“For 27 years, this country had been going deeper and deeper into a swamp,” Bohdan told the Kyiv Post in an Oct. 30 interview. “It’s very hard to clean up a swamp and keep your shirt white.”
In October, Bohdan told the Kyiv Post that he had a very specific metric of success for the administration: He wanted Ukraine to be able to borrow money at the historically low interest rates that Western countries now enjoy.
In 2019, Ukraine took loans at a 6% interest rate. He wanted it to go down to at least 3%. Then, he said, he could resign.
It came close. Ukraine issued eurobonds in January with a record low interest rate of 4.375% — which still fell short of Bohdan’s goal of 3%.
Amid all the controversies of his persona, Bohdan received praise for his reform efforts.
“He was very supportive and helpful of the new team at Ukroboronprom and encouraged the transformation,” said Aivaras Abromavičius, director general of the state defense holding Ukroboronprom, appointed by Zelensky in August. “He never ever proposed any candidates for senior positions in our company, which is unique by Ukrainian standards for someone who has just recently been named as the second most influential person in the country.”
“I think his reform efforts are grossly underrated and he will be missed,” added Abromavičius.
Kyiv Post chief editor Brian Bonner contributed reporting for this story.
