Serhiy Leshchenko: Anti-Trump Operative Now Advising Zelensky

In what can only be described as an affront to the Trump administration, Serhiy Leshchenko, a political activist who collaborated with Democrat Party operatives, now serves as an advisor to President Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak. Given his long-standing history of involvement in efforts to undermine President Trump, his position in Zelensky’s inner circle raises serious concerns about Ukraine’s ongoing political maneuvers, their implications for U.S. relations and the prospects of a peace deal.

Leshchenko, a former journalist and member of the Ukrainian Parliament, played a key role in Democratic opposition research efforts targeting former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. In 2016, he held a press conference to highlight the so-called Ukrainian “black ledger,” which allegedly contained records of off-the-books payments to Manafort. During that conference, Leshchenko explicitly called on Ukrainian and American law enforcement to aggressively investigate Manafort, saying, “If Mr. Manafort denies any allegations, I think he has to be interrogated into this case and prove his position that he was not involved in any misconduct on the territory of Ukraine.”

This disclosure, coordinated with Artem Sytnyk, the director of Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), was a turning point in the media’s assault on Trump’s 2016 campaign. The New York Times report on the ledger—published just days before Manafort’s resignation—did more than just damage Trump’s campaign, it helped lay the foundation for the Russia collusion hoax. Ukraine’s then-president, Petro Poroshenko, openly bragged in an August 19, 2016, phone call with Joe Biden that the ledger had taken down Manafort. The two men even laughed about it.