Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday that NATO states sending weapons to Ukraine was “perceived as direct involvement in the conflict” by Moscow, rather than being separate from it.

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Thursday, former US President Donald Trump called on US President Joe Biden to end “this crazy war” in Ukraine before it leads to the use of nuclear weapons.

“First come the tanks, then come the nukes. Get this crazy war ended, now. So easy to do,” Trump said.

The former US leader was referring to Biden’s decision earlier this week to ship nearly three dozen M1 Abrams main battle tanks to Ukraine as Poland agreed to send its own Leopard 2 tanks as well. Several NATO allies have also recently announced plans to send other light armored vehicles to Ukraine, too.

Trump has railed against the dangers posed by US support for Ukraine since February 2022, when Russia launched its special operation in Ukraine and NATO rushed to prop up the Ukrainian military. He’s far from being alone in that, as critics from across the political spectrum and from many NATO states have warned of a variety of dangerous consequences from the conflict, ranging from fuel shortages to the outbreak of thermonuclear war.

Biden has shown his awareness of the dangers of nuclear war, warning of the risk of “Armageddon,” but has done so in a way that suggests Russian President Vladimir Putin was threatening to use nuclear weapons. In fact, Putin said Russian nuclear forces had been placed on high alert due to “aggressive” statements by NATO about Russia paying a “severe price” for the operation, and he said nuclear war can have no winners and should never be invoked.

Biden has also ignored several attempts by Moscow to begin negotiations to end the conflict in Ukraine and advised Kiev to abstain from talks as well, pinning their consideration on Russia's withdrawal from Russian-speaking regions that voted to leave Ukraine and join the Russian Federation.

Path to Peace

Moscow launched the operation in February 2022 with the aim of neutralizing the country as a potential base for NATO weapons. The operation came after months of failed talks in which Washington diplomats said Russia's security red lines were "non-starters," and Kiev dramatically ramped up its attacks on rebels in the Russian-speaking Donbass region, where neo-Nazi formations had pushed a war on Russophone Ukrainians since 2014 that had killed nearly 20,000 people by that time.

Moscow now demands Kiev de-Nazify its government and armed forces and declare itself a neutral state, giving up the goal of joining the NATO alliance that is presently written into its constitution.

Trump's Record on Escalation

Ironically, when Trump was president, he was often accused by critics of attempting to start World War 3, variously with Iran, China, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). In August 2017, amid a tense showdown with US ally South Korea, Trump threatened the socialist state with “fire and fury like the world has never seen” if it continued to make threats against the US. Weeks later, Pyongyang tested its first thermonuclear weapon, and Trump soon proposed creating the W76-2 “micro-nuke,” which analysts warned was extremely dangerous because it lowered the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.

Despite the Russiagate accusations of collusion with Moscow, Trump was no less hostile toward Russia, either. During his tenure, the Pentagon and National Security Council declared a shift in the US’ strategic orientation away from the War on Terror and toward what it described as “great power competition” with Russia and China.

Trump also oversaw the continued basing of US forces along Russia’s western flank, weapons sales to Ukraine, and pushed ahead plans for the Aegis Ashore base in Redzikowo, Poland, and the overhaul of a similar base in Deveselu, Romania, which are capable of firing offensive strike missiles deep into Russia. He also signed the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), a law passed by the Democrat-controlled Congress that punishes states for buying advanced military equipment from Russia and China, among other makers.

The former president recently restablished control over his accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, following their suspension after the January 6, 2021, insurrection by his followers. He created the Truth Social platform in response to their suspension, but has so far not used his Twitter account since it was reactivated last October.

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https://sputniknews.com/20230126/first-come-the-tanks-then-come-the-nukes-trump-calls-on-biden-to-end-crazy-ukraine-conflict-1106735642.html

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By Patrick Lawrence / Original to ScheerPost

Two of my favorite New York Times words are “shadowy” and “murky.” They are brilliantly suited to the Manichean version of our world the Times inflicts daily upon its unsuspecting readers. When The Times terms someone or some society or some chain of events shadowy or murky it scarcely has to do any reporting. Two words more or less without meaning point readers’ minds in precisely the desired direction. 

I do not mean to single out The Times in this, except that I do. None of the other major dailies and none of the network broadcasters comes close to the once-but-no-longer newspaper of record in the matter of shadows and murk. This is especially so of the foreign desk, and a murkier corner of American journalism I cannot think of. 

There are lots of shadowy people in Russia, The Times will have us know, or think we know. Lots of murky things happen there. Donald Trump’s dealings with the Kremlin were very shadowy, and never mind it turned out there was nothing in them to cast any shadows. Shadows linger long after the lights go on, another of their useful features.     

It follows that there are never any shadows and nothing is ever murky among those people or nations the government-supervised Times counts among the “good guys” as opposed to the “bad guys,” and the most powerful paper in America does indulge in such language, if you have not noticed.

We come now to Ukraine. The shadows may be many and the murk very thick, but you will never read of either in The Times. The corruption scandal now erupting in Kyiv and across the country seems to me confirmation that Ukraine has made itself in the post–Soviet era less a nation than a criminal enterprise. This often happens in failed states, where no one believes in anything anymore for the simple reason there is nothing left to believe in. It is then the shadows descend and all grows murky. 

This is my read of Kyiv’s latest—of countless—purported efforts to cleanse the pool of corruption in which many of its top officials, most it sometimes seems, have long swum their laps. The Zelensky regime’s announcements of various firings, dismissals, and resignations, late last week and early this, are the merest swab on a gangrene-like disease that has all but consumed what there was of a Ukrainian polity. But worry not. There are no shadows or murk in Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelensky, Washington’s puppet, is the very goodest of the good guys and will get this done. 

By the best count I’ve read, in Le Monde and France24, more than a dozen top officials have so far been relieved of duty one way or another. There are a lot of deputies on this list—the level of administrator typically charged with seeing that things get done. The first of these to get the sack was a deputy infrastructure minister named Vasyl Lozynsky, who was arrested Sunday. On Tuesday came the apparently forced resignation of Kirill Tymoshenko, Zelensky’s deputy chief of staff. This brings things quite high in the hierarchy.  

And then the long list: a deputy defense minister, a deputy prosecutor, and two other deputies in charge of Kyiv’s provincial development programs. Along with these, the governors of five administrative regions—Kyiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia—were also fired outright or forced to resign. As France24 points out, the latter three of these regions are active battlefields; Kyiv and Sumy were on the front lines earlier on in the conflict.

Let us gather what facts we have and see what we can make of them. 

Vasyl Lozynsky, the infrastructure man, was responsible for restoring the hardware of water, electricity and heating supplies in those areas of Ukraine where either Russian or Ukrainian artillery and rockets had damaged or destroyed them. Plenty of room for patriotic service there, you have to say. Lozynsky is charged with embezzling roughly $400,000 of official funds on behalf of a crime syndicate of which he was a member. Some of these funds were supplied by foreign donors as part of the West’s war effort.

There is the case of Kirill Tymoshenko. A top aide to Zelensky, he has been by the president’s side since he was elected to office four years ago. Close, then. The Times’s explanation for his resignation borders on the cute. Tymoshenko’s transgression was to live a life of conspicuous consumption and “zip around Kyiv,” as The Times put it, in a flash SUV General Motors donated for use in humanitarian projects. This does not sound to me like the nadir of Ukrainian corruption. 

Le Monde’s piece featured a photograph of Tymoshenko with an unmistakable smirk and holding up a resignation letter signed with a heart, exclamation marks, and other less-than-serious scribble. I would not call him a worried man—or a serious man. 

The deputy defense minister, Vyacheslav Shapovalov, resigned after a Kyiv weekly, Zerkalo Nedeli, published an investigative piece revealing a kickback scheme wherein Shapovalov’s ministry paid extravagantly over the odds for food intended to supply Ukrainian troops. The fraud—I am reading Le Monde’s account of the Zerkalo Nedeli account—was in the amount of $330 million. 

Not much has come out about the others in Kyiv or the provincial governors, but the running theme is impossible to miss. A lot of these people had wartime functions giving them access to funds that were supposed to finance various dimensions of the war effort. Foreign funds would have to be prominent among these, given Kyiv is dead broke. This is in keeping with what we’ve read for many months: The Ukrainian political, security and military cliques are massively ripping off the U.S. 

Never mind that. The Times asserted high in its coverage—two stories to date—that all these officials casting no shadows scrupulously avoided stealing any of the billions of dollars the U.S. and the rest of the West are pouring into Ukraine. “There was no sign that the Ukrainian army’s food procurement scandal involved the misappropriation of Western military assistance,” Michael Schwirtz and Maria Varenikova wrote in Wednesday’s editions. 

And further on: “The Biden administration is ‘not aware that any U.S. assistance was involved’ in the corruption allegations, the State Department spokesman, Ned Price, told reporters on Tuesday. ‘We take extraordinarily seriously our responsibility to ensure appropriate oversight of all forms of U.S. assistance that we’re delivering to Ukraine,’ he added.”

“No sign,” “not aware”: Know what you are reading, readers. These are elisions. They are not denials. Are we supposed to think Ned Price is going to risk the acquiescence of most Americans if, in the land of no shadows and no murk, the Ukrainians have been misappropriating U.S. taxpayers’ dough? As to the oversight assertion, it is patently false, as that explosive CBS exposé aired last year made perfectly clear. In it we learned that up to 70 percent of the matériel the West ships in via Poland is siphoned into Ukraine’s immense black market in arms. 

It is perfectly plain what is going on here by way of the timing. The U.S. has gone from “no lethal arms,” in the years after it sponsored the 2014 to promising, as of this week, main battle tanks. Here is Yuriy Sak, who advises Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, talking to Reuters Thursday: 

They didn’t want to give us heavy artillery, then they did. They didn’t want to give us HIMARS [advanced rocket] systems, then they did. They didn’t want to give us tanks, now they’re giving us tanks. Apart from nuclear weapons, there is nothing left that we will not get.

As Sak made clear, the Kyiv regime is about to start pestering the U.S. for F–16 fighter jets. “Not just F–16s,” Sak added with breathtaking impudence. “Fourth-generation aircraft, this is what we want.”

These kinds of statements from officials of Sak’s rank make it bitterly clear that Kyiv is confident the conflict with Russia has landed it with a cash cow that will keep on giving far into the future. Unfortunately, this is an accurate read of the Biden administration’s obsession with destroying the Russian Federation and, in the service of this project, keeping the war going indefinitely.  

Think about the Tymoshenko resignation in this context. Here is a man who probably saw Zelensky on a daily basis and enjoyed his boss’s confidence. The expropriated SUV and the expensive living had to be obvious in the presidential circle. Nothing was said for as many as four years. Suddenly, Tymoshenko’s vulgar displays, penny ante as they may be, are just as damaging as the big-time theft at this moment. 

I see only one conclusion: We witness a faux purge fashioned to look ruthless when it is nothing more than cosmetic. I do not think Zelensky, to put this point another way, is at all interested in rooting out Ukraine’s structural corruption. There are signs aplenty in his past that he does not stand so supremely far above it.

Zelensky is more a creature of the Biden administration than he is of Washington per se, it seems more accurate to say at this point. The distinction is important. It is very likely the Biden White House—and who knows who runs it these days?—has ordered its puppet to clean up the act, even if it is an act and nothing more.

Victoria “Cookies” Nuland, among the architects of the 2014 coup and an infinitely tolerant patron of the Kyiv regime ever since, made this clear Thursday. “We have been very clear that we need to see, as they prosecute this war, the anti-corruption steps, including good corporate governance and judicial measures, move forward,” she said in Senate testimony. It’s boilerplate, said many times over the years, but it is telling that Nuland is called upon to say it again and now. 

Let us not forget: Now that Republicans are a majority in the House, they could any day begin demanding strict accountability for the profligate amounts of weaponry and money the Biden administration is pumping into Ukraine. Kyiv will look shadowy and murky indeed if the newly seated House gets going on this project. This leaves Biden just as vulnerable as Zelensky appears to be. 

To turn this dimension of things another way, there are reports here and there that the Biden administration is growing fed up with Zelensky and the mess of corruption, in combination with severe anti-democratic repression, he oversees. I cannot verify these reports and I don’t think anyone can at this moment. But as the war outlook dims, Zelensky’s political fortunes may well dim with them. 

There is a deeper, profoundly saddening point to consider as this newest corruption scandal unfolds, and all indications are that it will continue to do so. What kind of people are these? What kind of polity is this? What kind of country is Ukraine? 

Kirill Tymoshenko’s nonsense is not altogether nonsense: It is worthy of a few moments’ thought. What kind of man is he to behave as he has in this passage of the Ukrainian story? As to the others, same questions: What kind of man would steal funds meant to keep his own people warm? What kind of man would embezzle the money meant to feed troops defending their country, setting aside on behalf of what?

I have called Ukraine a failed state. I do not think there is any question of this. I have been on the way for some time to concluding Ukrainians are a failed people, too. By this I mean a broken people. The tragic suffering they endured during the Soviet era left deep scars, a kind of national pathology. Did this leave them incapable of making a nation of themselves in the post–Soviet years? I can only pose the question. 

It is prompted by what I see now, a failed state wherein many people are left with nothing in which they can believe, where there is nothing to which they can belong. At the top, a sordid greedfest. Everywhere else it is sheer survival in a state of constant anxiety. It is a terrible thing to recognize how utterly inadequate the people running the criminal state of Ukraine are to respond to this moving tragedy. 

Amid all the revelations of corruption and the firings and dismissals, Zelensky gave a much-noted speech last weekend to commemorate Ukraine’s Unity Day. “We are all together, no matter where we were born and where we grew up,” he said. “Say today: I will defend my Ukraine. My unity.” The conceit is too thin to hold up at this point and the irony of the moment too great to miss. There is little unity to find among Ukrainians, it seems to me. The nationalism professed by the ruling cliques shapes up as a veil covering up the rampant thievery. The virulent nationalism evident among the far-right political factions and militias, a topic I will take up in future commentaries, seems now to reflect a desperate need to belong in a nation offering nothing in which to belong, to find meaning where there is no meaning.

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https://scheerpost.com/2023/01/28/patrick-lawrence-the-shadows-descend-in-ukraine/

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Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov will be relieved of his duties and instead appointed minister for strategic industries, according to David Arakhamia, who heads the parliamentary faction of President Vladimir Zelensky’s political party. The planned reshuffle follows multiple corruption scandals and resignations by other officials, including Reznikov’s deputy.

The chief of the Ukrainian Intelligence Directorate (GUR), Kirill Budanov, “will head the defense ministry, which is absolutely logical in wartime,” Arakhamia announced in a Telegram post on Sunday night.

The head of the ruling parliamentary faction did not offer a timeline, but according to RBC-Ukraine news agency’s sources, the parliament is expected to finalize the reshuffle during the next session.

Asked about his rumored dismissal, Reznikov said earlier on Sunday that it was up to President Vladimir Zelensky to decide his fate, but he was “ready for anything” and his conscience was “absolutely clear.”

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https://www.rt.com/russia/571008-ukraine-defense-minister-reznikov/

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A Puzzling Purge in Kiev

This topic has hit the headlines in the Western mainstream media and then all of a sudden the story seems to have died down into a strange sounding silence as if the authors were magically issued commands from the same HQs.

When in the midst of the raging war i.e. the special military operation on the territory where the conflict is ongoing, there begins an all out though untimely campaign in all-guns-blazing style similar to that one ongoing in Ukraine right now under the feeble pretext of the alleged fight against corruption, when millions of people surely have other way more pressing issues to cope with, such as struggling to save their own lives and those of their family members, one has to assume that this is not an anti-corruption campaign at all but of another type of a (final) reckoning, for which corruption serves as a convenient smokescreen.

Moreover, this topic, funnily enough, has hit the headlines in the Western mainstream media and then all of a sudden the story seems to have died down into a strange sounding silence as if the authors were magically issued commands from the same HQs, only to remain silent up until the moment when they get to be issued another set of directives so as to what exactly to write and what political narrative to push in their journalistic columns or TV screens. One has to try and grasp that it is not just another petty local corruption scandal of no particular significance. There must be a mountain of more seriously sinister issues lying behind this seemingly miniscule political molehill other than just a negligible anti corruption campaign.

Of course there is a high level of corruption in Ukraine. We know that already in its staggering proportions at their all-time-high. Namely, the Guardian, London, UK, used to write ‘Welcome to Ukraine, the most corrupt nation in Europe’ back in 2015, immediately after all those ‘pro – European powers that be’ which arrived there after the infamous Kiev coup, the duty of which it was to get Ukraine in line with the NATO standards and eventually get it into the war against Russia shortly afterwards. With Biden most probably fraudulently coming to power after Donald Trump was viciously ousted from office in 2020, it became rather uncomfortable to talk about this plaguing issue in Ukraine. It might be because a fully-fledged business network was owned by Biden’s cocaine-addicted prodigal son, Hunter Biden, who, for what it’s worth, cheated on his own wife with his own dead brother’s widow.

Furthermore, an unexpected collapse of the FTX crypto exchange in autumn 2022, when its owner Sam Bankman-Fried, the U.S. Democratic Party second biggest financial donor after George Soros, having embezzled billions of dollars, hogged the headlines again with their intricately intertwisted channels of corruption in Ukraine. To cut this long Aesopian political fable short, this thirty year-old, highly corrupt U.S. Democratic Party donor used to be managing the financial aid for Ukraine in close corrupt cooperation with the regime there. The U.S. Fox TV reported that the funds allegedly donated for Ukraine were simply ‘recycled’ there (note to SCF readership: this sounds like a new euphemism for money laundering) and via the close cooperation with Kiev and the hefty complementary commissions (read: personal cash contributions for the most obedient Santa’s little helpers) ultimately were shovelled back in the form of a massive donation to the ruling Democratic Party in the U.S., which is surely illegal, and then it was somehow conveniently dropped out of the political limelight to let it vanish into the mainstream thin air.

And then again, all of a sudden with the resounding support from the U.S. mainstream media, which up until that moment used to keep shtum by producing a very loud noise pollution, an avalanche of resignations and political replacements, complete with almost Hollywood-style arrests of high profile Ukraine officials, as if only then did they become aware of it. In the past couple of weeks in a synchronized round of actions, a significant number of officials in high positions from Ukraine national customs office and the regional administrations were arrested. Arsen Avakov, who used to be Ukraine Minister of Internal Affairs until 2021, had his house raided and searched. According to the Wall Street Journal, he wielded a high level of power and influence and got under the public gaze in January 2023 again because his successor, Denis Monastyrsky died in a helicopter crash this January together with a helicopter full of his fellow officials, which has not seen any further official clarification ever since. Six officials of the Ministry of Defence were also arrested among whom are two minister deputies and one advisor, who are charged with apparently embezzling exorbitant sums of 43 million euros from the national military budget.

One could have seen the next thing coming, when David Arakhamia, the boss of the parliamentary delegates of President Zelensky’s party ‘Servant of the People’, the replacement of the Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov with the announcement to follow that Kirill Budanov, major general, the chief of the Main Directorate of the Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence, will fill his position. This did not come as a surprise either because his glitzy image for the gullible public has been the hard work for a while now by both Washington Post and New York Times so it is obvious who he is being conveniently positioned by in this almost perfect political vacancy.

Bloomberg reports in a matter of one day, that the current minister Resnikov will not be replaced after all, with an absolutely meaningless explanation given, that that move would endanger Ukraine’s war efforts as if their military plight so far has not been tragic enough already. What might have happened between Sunday and Monday to change this major decision remains unknown, yet it is rather certain that Reznikov must have very powerful patrons if in effect, the Collective Biden have failed to replace him and to position Budanov in his place.

Certain Russian sources seem to suggest their possible explanations that the intriguing reasons behind this might be that the British and the Americans are at each others’ political throats heavily embroiled in their own turf wars so as to ensure their respective territories in Kiev at large, once the war is over. Another intriguing detail should be taken into account. There was a raid and a search of the house of the oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky, the oligarch inventor of Vladimir Zelensky, whom Kolomoysky had to distance personally from, when Washington put his name under the sanctions last year as well. This is yet another indicator of the most savage power games happening there. Zelensky stripped Kolomoysky of his Ukrainian citizenship for the same reason, but this oligarch financier of neo-Nazi battalions, such as Azov, happens to be an Israeli passport holder as well.

This whole succession of events is becoming ever more intricate. In the midst of it all, Naftali Bennett, the former PM of Israel comes out in public with a lengthy interview to confirm that he was the mediator between Kiev and Moscow at the very beginning of the Russian special military operation and that they almost reached a peace agreement, which would have saved tens of thousands of lives and would have saved the country from complete collapse but Washington and the Collective West regrettably sabotaged the whole deal. Bennet goes on to depict Zelensky as a braggart puppet hiding away in a bunker up until the PM of Israel informed him that Vladimir Putin has no intention of ‘doing away’ with him. Only then was Zelensky brave enough to stick his cowardly nose out of his bunker only to say that he ‘ain’t afraid of anybody and anything’.

We are yet to see who might be behind this sudden political purge in Kiev and what its objectives might be. The roles of USA, UK and Israel in all this depredation will most probably be savagely crucial.

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https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/02/14/a-puzzling-purge-in-kiev/

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THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION ABOVE IS SIMPLE.... FROM BEING ONE OF THE MOST CORRUPT COUNTRIES ON EARTH, "UKRAINE" HAD TO APPEAR TO BE THE LEAST CORRUPT COUNTRY ON EARTH TO MAKE THE FOLLOWING DEALS:

By Dave DeCamp / Antiwar.com

Bankers from JP Morgan Chase visited Ukraine last week and signed a memorandum of understanding with President Volodymyr Zelensky and plan to help raise private capital for a new fund for Ukraine’s reconstruction.

According to Fox Business, JP Morgan, America’s largest bank, discussed with Zelensky the creation of a fund that would start with $20 – $30 billion in private capital to go towards investment in Ukraine. Another idea would be to establish a new bank administered by Wall Street firms that would invest in Ukrainian infrastructure that has been destroyed in the war.

Zelensky’s office said that the Ukrainian leader met with senior members of JP Morgan on Friday. “I understand very well that doing business and investing cannot be beneficial to only one party. We want you to invest in Ukraine and earn money,” Zelensky said.

Besides helping raise private investment for Ukraine, JP Morgan will advise on  financial stabilization, sovereign credit ratings, and economic ties to Europe. The bank’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, said the “full resources” of JP Morgan are available to Ukraine as it “charts its post-conflict path to growth.”

Ukraine’s reconstruction will have a huge price tag, with the World Bank estimating in December that it could cost between 500 and 600 billion euros ($525 billion-$630 billion). Last July, Ukrainian officials estimated the “recovery plan” will cost about $750 billion. As the war goes on and more of Ukraine is destroyed, the price tag will increase.

Zelensky has also agreed to coordinate Ukraine’s reconstruction with the investment management company BlackRock after meeting with the company’s CEO, Larry Fink. Last month, Zelensky said American corporations would find “big business” in Ukraine.

“It is already clear that this will be the largest economic project of our time in Europe,” Zelensky said in a video address to a meeting of the National Association of State Chambers “We have already managed to attract attention and have cooperation with such giants of the international financial and investment world as BlackRock, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.”

Zelensky cited US military aid as an example of the business opportunities found in Ukraine. “And everyone can become a big business by working with Ukraine. In all sectors — from weapons and defense to construction, from communications to agriculture, from transport to IT, from banks to medicine,” he said.

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https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/16/zelensky-signs-agreement-with-jp-morgan-on-ukraines-reconstruction/

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"UKRAINE" IS STILL ONE OF MOST CORRUPT COUNTRY ON THE PLANET, BUT IN ORDER FOR SUCH "PRIVATE" BANKS TO BE ABLE TO MAKE DEALS, "UKRAINE HAS TO APPEAR TO HAVE BEEN CLEANED UP FROM CORRUPTION."

THE USA ARE STILL VERY CORRUPT:

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Any Western attempts to transfer seized Russian assets to Ukraine would be “barbarism,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has claimed. If necessary, Moscow is ready to impose a tit-for-tat response, she added.

Speaking at a press briefing on Friday, Zakharova noted that EU nations had invested heavily in Russia, meaning a significant amount of European-owned assets remain in the country. Their value is larger than that of the Russian assets seized by foreign nations, the spokeswoman argued.

Zakharova insisted that Russia wants to operate within the law and would give the US and its allies “every last chance” to reconsider any plans to confiscate Russian property. However, she added that Moscow was fully prepared to defend its interests, including through the use of “equal compensatory measures.”

The remarks referred to a new EU working group, established to explore ways to make Russia fund the future reconstruction of Ukraine.

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After sending $110 billion worth of military and financial aid to Ukraine for a year, the US is making plans to send auditors and inspectors to Kiev so they don’t have to rely on second-hand reports, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday citing Pentagon, State Department and USAID officials.

The inspectors-general from the three respective agencies told the outlet that so far, oversight was conducted using staff in Poland and Germany. After going to Kiev last month and meeting Ukrainian officials, they decided to send some of their 177 auditors and investigators into Ukraine itself.

The trio met with Ukraine’s prime minister, ministers of defense and finance, and the prosecutor general, Defense Department IG Robert Storch told the Journal, adding that they emphasized the US “expectations for accountability, and also the importance of cooperation with our oversight work.” 

Diana Shaw, deputy IG at the State Department, said the US has given Ukraine “an incredibly large amount of assistance” in a “very short time” and that “Any fraud, waste, abuse that would divert that funding from its intended purpose risks jeopardizing the continued flow of that assistance.”

The US Congress appropriated more than $113 billion for aid to Ukraine in 2022. In addition to pricey weapons systems and ammunition, Washington has sent Kiev cash so the Ukrainian government can continue to operate. To monitor this flow, the Journal revealed, Washington has relied on staff in nearby countries, the small staff of the US embassy in Kiev, EU officials in Ukraine, and World Bank personnel.

“I think we have been as creative and you know, out of the box, forward-leaning with the oversight we’ve been able to accomplish so far. But for real comprehensive, robust oversight, it can’t be done remotely,” said Nicole Angarella, acting deputy USAID inspector general.

Shaw explained that the Kiev trip was intended to “assess whether we felt that we needed to have an on-site presence in-country. And so coming back from that trip, I think we feel that we do and so we’re now in the process of pursuing that.”

The inspectors have “thus far received no reports of major fraud or illegality” regarding the US aid, according to the Journal. President Vladimir Zelensky’s recent purges of Ukrainian officials as part of an anti-corruption campaign had nothing to do with US aid, they insisted.

While Storch and Shaw are mainly concerned with the military aid, Angarella is primarily concerned with more than $20 billion the US is sending through the World Bank to pay the salaries of Ukrainian government officials.

Cash payments are “the greatest risk for oversight,” she said. “Cash is fungible, and, you know, is always at a higher risk.” According to Angarella, USAID has assessed that “proper controls” were in place to detect any misuse of funding.

While both the ruling Democrats and the leadership of the opposition Republicans maintain the most important thing for the US to do is continue funding Ukraine “for as long as it takes,” recent polls have shown Americans growing tired of the ever-increasing aid to Kiev while problems mount at home. 

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German FM Annalena Baerbock will be fired, she criticized the uncriticizable. Not allowed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XArPfin2URk

IN THE VIDEO ABOVE, Emil Cosman, A ROUMANIAN ANALYST (AMATEUR?) DISCUSS BAERBOCK EXPOSITION OF UKRAINE'S CORRUPTION. DOING SO, DESPITE SUPPORTING THE "WAR EFFORT", IS LIKE TREASON.... WHETHER ANNALENA GETS FIRED OR NOT, ISN'T KNOWN YET.

YET, DESPITE THE ENORMOUS CORRUPTION IN UKRAINE, A FEW ENTREPRENEURS ARE LICKING THEIR LIPS AND RUBBING THEIR HANDS AT THE MONEY TO BE MADE BY "RECONSTRUCTING" UKRAINE — MEANING THAT THE OWNERSHIP OF THAT COUNTRY WILL BECOME PRIVATISED IN THE HANDS OF A FEW WESTERN — DARE I SAY "CROOKS". THEY AREN'T CROOKS, BUT THE DEALS WITH UKRAINE WILL BE CROOKERY. JOKINGLY, I BELIEVE, THE WEST (AKA USA) HAS INDICATED THAT RUSSIA SHOULD PAY FOR THE RECONSTRUCTION... BUT THIS WOULD GIVE THE RUSSIANS OWNERSHIP OF UKRAINE... SO THIS ISN'T ON THE CARD. THE RUSSIANS WILL HAVE ENOUGH BOTHER TO RECONSTRUCT ("EASTERN UKRAINE") RUSSIAN DONBASS.

AT THIS STAGE, STEALING FROM THE "FROZEN" RUSSIAN ASSETS IS STILL ILLEGAL AND, DESPITE ATTEMPTS TO MAKE RETROACTIVE BANKING LEGISLATION, THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE YET. AND THERE COULD BE HELL TO PAY...

SO PRIVATE ENTERPRISES ARE THE WAY TO GO. NOT YET. THE HOSTILITIES HAVE TO BE TERMINATED. WE KNOW (WE HAVE A CRYSTAL BALL) THAT THEY CAN ONLY BE ARRESTED ON RUSSIAN TERMS. ANY WESTERN POLITICIANS AND JOURNALISTS HAVE TO KNOW THIS. AND MAKING A FINANCIAL DEAL WITH ZELENSKY IS LIKE MAKING A PACT WITH THE MAFIA....

SO LETS IMAGINE THAT, ZELENSKY OUT OF THE WAY, KIEV AND MOSCOW MAKE A PEACE DEAL:

A) THE BEST KIEV CAN EXPECT IS LOOSING THE DONBASS AND CRIMEA.

B) THE LOWER RANGE OF EXPECTATION WOULD ADD ODESSA, KHERSON AND KARKIV TO THE LIST OF LOST TERRITORIES AND MOLDOVA LOOSING TRANSNISTRIA.

C) THE WORSE THAT KIEV CAN EXPECT IS A TOTAL CAPITULATION AND THE ENTIRE UKRAINE BEING SANITISED AS A SMALL INDEPENDENT/AUTONOMOUS NON-NAZI RUSSIAN PROVINCE. 

D) THE SUPER WORSE IS NUCLEAR WW3. FEW MORONS WANT THIS.

SO, IT'S FASCINATING TO SEE THE SHARKS CIRCLING AROUND THE DEAD WHALE:

London: Ukraine says it wants to make its economy cashless as soon as possible to stamp out corruption and secure the hundreds of billions of dollars from private investors that it will need to rebuild after the war.

The plans follow the direct urging to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by Australia’s richest man, Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, who has unveiled a new investment fund for Ukraine’s reconstruction, kick-started with $US500 million ($735 million) paid for via his private company, Tattarang.

While the likes of Sweden have moved towards a cashless society, Ukraine could be the first in the world to truly achieve it as part of a shift intended to avoid the corruption seen after the Iraq War, when reconstruction funds were used for bribes and kickbacks.

On the most recent Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International, Ukraine scored 33 out of 100 – ranking 116 out of 180 countries on the index.

Deputy Minister for the Economy Oleksandr Gryban said Zelensky was “very determined” to move towards a cashless economy and the government would “make everything to make it happen as soon as possible”.

“This is a clear intention of the president, I assure you,” Gryban said.

“He does understand that a number of problems were driven by cash, so one of the last meetings he was managing, cashless economy was just one of the main pillars for the future economic transformation.”

In an interview with this masthead, Forrest said he had not invested in Ukraine before the war, despite becoming one of the country’s most significant philanthropic donors since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

Forrest said the commitment to go cashless made by Gryban was “fantastic” because it would “put the nail in the coffin of corruption”.

“That’s the point I’ve made to the Ukrainian government: cash will lead to corruption. Now here’s your opportunity to go cashless – there’s no reason to have cash in your society, none.”

The fund established by Forrest will be run by Ukraine’s Ministry for Economy and administered by US multinational investment company BlackRock. The Australian mining billionaire hopes to attract other investors and funds of up to $US100 billion.

Forrest said he was confident in Ukraine’s progress and would advise fellow investors to back the country’s rebuild.

“I think it will be like trying to hold back the tide, I really do,” he said.

Forrest will return any dividends, but any returns will be available to co-investors. The fund will be triggered only when the Ukrainian cabinet concludes that the war is over.

READ MORE:

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/twiggy-backs-ukraine-s-ambition-to-go-cashless-in-anti-corruption-bid-20230622-p5dihs.html

THERE ARE MORE WAYS TO BE CORRUPT THAN BY USING CASH. WE KNOW: GIFTS, PROMOTIONS, FAVOURS, MURDERS, ETC... THE LIST IS LONG AND INCLUDES DRUG, GAMBLING....

SEE ALSO:

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Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, whose support is widely believed to have helped Vladimir Zelensky secure the country’s presidency, was detained pending trial for alleged money laundering.

Kolomoisky was brought to Kiev’s Shevchenko district court on Saturday, after the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) accused the billionaire of legalizing and transferring abroad more than 500 million Ukrainian hryvnia ($13.5 million) through the “infrastructure of banking institutions controlled by him.”

The pretrial detention hearing was held behind closed doors, as requested by Kolomoisky, who reportedly did not want the media to share photos of him in the courtroom. Several Ukrainian media outlets still captured photos and videos from the proceeding.

https://www.rt.com/russia/582281-kolomoysky-ukraine-laundering-arrested/

SEE ALSO:

zelensky is a crook according to the pandora papers. thank you luke harding for your contribution......

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Widespread corruption in Ukraine could hamper Kiev’s bid for EU membership, a western European diplomat told Politico on Monday. He said Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s efforts to tackle the problem have also alarmed Brussels.

Ukraine applied for membership in the European Union last February, and was formally granted candidate status four months later. Although European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is expected to address the issue of enlargement during her state of the union speech on Wednesday, and EU Council President Charles Michel has vowed to admit all candidate nations by 2030, Ukraine’s bid could be hamstrung by rampant corruption.

Ukraine is a “very corrupt country,” an anonymous western European diplomat told Politico. “We want to give a positive signal to Ukraine but things such as this proposal to give more power to [Ukraine’s] intelligence [services] over corruption can send the wrong message.”

The proposal in question was raised by Zelensky last month. Following a purge of allegedly corrupt officials at the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, Zelensky announced that he would task the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) with probing and prosecuting corruption cases, taking investigative power away from the country’s multiple anti-graft agencies.

The SBU reports solely to Zelensky. Representatives of Ukraine’s existing anti-corruption agencies told Politicolast month that by making the SBU the only body allowed to investigate these cases, Zelensky is essentially giving himself the power to decide which corrupt officials to prosecute and which ones to shield.

There is precedent for these fears, the head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center (ACAC), Vitaly Shabunin, said. Oleg Tatarov, the deputy head of Zelensky’s office, was under investigation by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) last year, when the case was unexpectedly transferred to the SBU. “It was buried there,” Shabunin said. “Now [Zelensky’s] office wants to make that into practice.”

Ukraine has for years been ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. According to Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, as of 2022, the country ranked 116th out of 180.

Aside from corruption concerns, disputes between Ukraine and European nations over agriculture could also hold up Kiev’s membership bid. Ukrainian farmers could undercut their European counterparts with cheap grain exports, meaning that the EU will likely have to reform its Common Agricultural Policy if Ukraine is to be admitted, Politico noted. 

https://www.rt.com/news/582782-eu-membership-ukraine-corrupt/

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The vast majority of Ukrainians believe that President Vladimir Zelensky is at fault for widespread corruption in the country’s government and military, a new study has revealed.

The poll, released on Monday, found that 78% of Ukrainian adults see Zelensky as “directly responsible” for Kiev’s corruption problem. It was conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Charitable Foundation and the Kiev International Institute of Sociology.

Prior to the launch of Russia’s military offensive in February 2022, Ukraine consistently ranked among the world’s most corrupt nations, but it was touted as a bastion of freedom and democracy as the US and its NATO allies rallied public support for massive aid to Kiev. However, Ukrainian corruption remains a concern and could hinder the country’s bid to join the European Union, an unidentified Western diplomat told Politico on Monday.

https://www.rt.com/news/582796-ukraine-corruption-poll-zelensky-responsible/

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MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN:

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

EASY.

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

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