[6] In August 2020, U.S. counterintelligence chief William Evanina identified Derkach as a key participant in Russian efforts to harm Joe Biden's candidacy in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

[2] In 1993, he graduated with a Ph.D. in law from the Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB, (later renamed the FSB Academy),[19][20] with a thesis titled "Organizing and Holding Meetings with Secret Agents".

[2] Despite no longer having an official role, Derkach remains involved in the management of Energoatom, making strategic decisions alongside Oleg Boyarintsev and Herman Galushchenko.

[24] In 2003, both Andrii and Leonid Derkach were implicated in numerous illegal weapons transfers to the Balkans, Asia and Africa including to Iraq, the Taliban, al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab, and Liberia.

[25] Derkach was implicated in the government's orchestration of the Euromaidan assault by security forces on peaceful demonstrators in Kyiv on 11 December 2013.

[17] According to Media Ownership Monitor Ukraine, Derkach "de facto owns" television channel TRK Era and Radio Era; officially the owner is his assistant Anton Oleksandrovych Simonenko while Derkach is listed as honorary president of Era-Media and head of the arts council of TRK Еra.

[30] According to anti-corruption watchdog organization Chesno, Derkach and his associates illegally appropriated 42 hectares of protected lands valued at tens of millions of dollars.

[31][32] Derkach also failed to declare his wife's stake in various of his business enterprises, as he was obliged to do under the Ukrainian law to prevent corruption.

[36][2] On 20 August 2021 the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine imposed personal economic restrictive sanctions against Derkach on the grounds he was a "pro-Russian propagandist".

[46][47] On 13 January 2023, a constitutional majority of members of the Verkhovna Rada voted to strip Derkach of his position as a people's deputy.

[49] On 9 October 2019, Derkach alleged that Joe Biden had been involved in an international money laundering scheme with Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings and US-based Rosemont Seneca Partners.

[22][56] Derkach, Konstantin Kilimnik, who is a member of the Russian intelligence community and an associate of Paul Manafort who described Kilimnik as Manafort's "Russian Brain",[57][58][59] and Andrii Telizhenko, who is a close associate of Rudy Giuliani, supported Michael Caputo, who was producer, and Sergey Petrushin, who is a Russian co-producer that lives in Miami and a close associate of Caputo for over 25 years, making the documentary film The Ukraine Hoax: Impeachment, Biden Cash, and Mass Murder with guest host Michael Caputo which aired on the One America News Network (OANN) on 21 January 2020 only two weeks before the Senate's acquittal of Donald Trump after his first impeachment trial.

[60][61][62][63][64][65][66] During the summer of 2020, the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which was chaired by Ron Johnson, held hearings into the relationships among Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, and the Bidens.

[76][77] In April 2021, Forensic News reported that Derkach came under the scrutiny of prosecutors investigating Russian interference in the presidential election in 2020.

[78] In May 2021 the New York Times confirmed that prosecutors investigated whether Derkach and other Ukrainians "helped orchestrate a wide-ranging plan to meddle in the 2020 presidential campaign, including using Rudolph W. Giuliani to spread their misleading claims about President Biden and tilt the election in Donald J. Trump's favor.

[83][84] In the fall of 2020, Derkach was president of the 18th Pokrov International Orthodox Film Festival, which promoted peace and friendship with Russia.

[85] In February 2021, he wrote a letter to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew asking him not to come to Ukraine with a "plan of aggression" for the 30th anniversary of Ukrainian independence.