President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky does not consider deputy head of the President's Office Oleh Tatarov to be corrupt, but he is sure that he must prove that he is not guilty.

"I can't even draw such conclusions! The criminal case concerns 2017. I was not in the office of the president then, he did not work in the Office either. Therefore, the phrases 'corruption again during Zelensky's time' is dishonest. It hurts, it affects me personally. It's not about the rating or about the image," Zelensky said in an interview with Focus.ua.

Zelensky stressed that he demanded from head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak to relieve Tatarov from his post as soon as he received information about his accusations of corruption.

"As soon as there was news about Tatarov, I called Yermak and said: 'If the story is at least one word connected with his work here, ask him to leave.' Then we learned that it is about 2017. It turned out that all people in this case had been released. Since this week, we have removed Tatarov from the NABU, the prosecutor's office. All these powers have been transferred to Andriy Smyrnov [deputy chairman of the President's Office]. This is a conflict of interest. Therefore, we told Tatarov to prove that he is innocent," noted Zelensky.

The President of Ukraine stressed that any person from his entourage, suspected of corruption, will be immediately fired.

"I want to emphasize: if those who work with me are suspected of corruption, these people will be fired. And I haven't seen such examples in my Office for a year and a half. They neither stole anything in the army, nor sold bulletproof vests with holes, nor received bribes," Zelensky said.