Yermak, who is unmarried and has no children, has wholly dedicated himself to his work. His old apartment sits largely unused and he rarely visits his parents, who remain in Kyiv. “He can go 24 hours straight working, no exaggeration,” said Sybiha, the foreign minister. “It’s not just his ambition. It’s his operating system.”
The relationship between the two men goes beyond work, their aides and allies say. “He is the president’s closest soratnik,” Sybiha said. The word translates to something like comrade, or brother-in-arms. They sleep near each other in the building’s bunker, shielded from the Russian air strikes that have intensified since Spring this year. There, after a long work day, they may unwind by playing table tennis or watching classic films they know so well they can recite the lines. Most mornings begin with a workout, the two side by side, lifting weights. “He loves to look like a good-looking man,” said Rodnyansky, Yermak’s film producer friend. “Both of them work out hard.”