That's the CIA estimate apparently of his graft during 2022. I'm sure Brad Paisley had a stern discussion with him about this, last week. Also, buying diesel/gas from Russia during the Biden-Ukraine war, with American funds. LOL. Sorry for being so unpatriotic to question his heroism.
More here:
As a reminder, without troops/forces on the ground, we're essentially not even trying to keep track of where the funds/weapons/$400/gallon fuel from Pakistan we send over goes. As with Afghanistan, corruption our aid dollars facilitated will/has only bred cynicism toward the government;
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What also is unknown is that Zelensky has been buying the fuel from Russia, the country with which it, and Washington, are at war, and the Ukrainian president and many in his entourage have been skimming untold millions from the American dollars earmarked for diesel fuel payments. One estimate by analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency put the embezzled funds at $400 million last year, at least; another expert compared the level of corruption in Kiev as approaching that of the Afghan war, "although there will be no professional audit reports emerging from the Ukraine."
"Zelensky's been buying discount diesel from the Russians," one knowledgeable American intelligence official told me. "And who's paying for the gas and oil? We are. Putin and his oligarchs are making millions" on it.
Many government ministries in Kiev have been literally "competing," I was told, to set up front companies for export contracts for weapons and ammunition with private arms dealers around the world, all of which provide kickbacks. Many of those companies are in Poland and Czechia, but others are thought to exist in the Persian Gulf and Israel. "I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there are others in places like the Cayman Islands and Panama, and there are lots of Americans involved," an American expert on international trade told me.
This war is such a pathetic farce. It's just a tool to spike inflation globally while enriching 'certain' folks. No wonder Ukraine has appealed to the Biden crime family for so long.Quote:
The issue of corruption was directly raised with Zelensky in a meeting last January in Kiev with CIA Director William Burns. His message to the Ukrainian president, I was told by an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the meeting, was out of a 1950s mob movie. The senior generals and government officials in Kiev were angry at what they saw as Zelensky's greed, so Burns told the Ukrainian president, because "he was taking a larger share of the skim money than was going to the generals."
Burns also presented Zelensky with a list of thirty-five generals and senior officials whose corruption was known to the CIA and others in the American government. Zelensky responded to the American pressure ten days later by publicly dismissing ten of the most ostentatious officials on the list and doing little else. "The ten he got rid of were brazenly bragging about the money they haddriving around Kiev in their new Mercedes," the intelligence official told me.
More here:
Ukraine remains a corrupt cesspool of graft, lies and death.Quote:
This isn't just corruption, but a competition of corruption.
It shouldn't be a surprise; even prior to the war, corruption and cronyism were widespread and systemic in Ukraine. Shady malefactors such as the Bidens traveled to Ukraine to strike shady deals with dubious oligarchs in Ukraine to enrich themselves. They knew that corrupt Ukrainian officials merely look the other way in exchange for inducements.
Zelensky, despite no background in politics, won the presidential election in 2019 from a campaign that was allegedly bankrolled by one of Ukraine's richest and most corrupt oligarchs, Igor Kolomoisky. Kolomoisky's record was so appalling that even the U.S. government banned him from entry into the country, citing "significant corruption" and his using his "influence and power for his personal benefit" as reasons.
Upon being elected, Zelensky passed "tough" anti-oligarch laws, which on the surface seemed like an anti-corruption move, but in reality, the laws were used to target both Zelensky's and Kolomoisky's challengers and adversaries.
There is more bad news apart from the corruption. Hersh also claimed that the U.S. government blew up the Nord Stream pipelines. Hersh quoted an unnamed intelligence official who said that the sabotage of the pipelines and lack of strategic planning about Ukrainian conflict had caused a mounting rift between the White House and the Intelligence Community. The official claimed that the White House lacks clarity on its policy in Ukraine, while the Pentagon is somewhat optimistically preparing for an end to the conflict.
A recent trove of leaked classified documents revealed a lack of unity among U.S. allies fighting the Ukraine war. Also, 14 American troops have been secretly deployed to Ukraine and are direct combatants in the war, contrary to claims made by U.S. officials.
The leak also revealed that the Ukrainian army, contrary to media reports, may be on the verge of losing the war due to the death of combatants, depletion of weaponry, and failure of air defenses. Other reports revealed that the Ukrainian conflict had attracted over 20 thousand foreign fighters from all over the world. These unvetted "fighters" could pilfer the advanced weaponry for other use or sell them in the black market to nefarious forces.
The president of Nigeria revealed that weapons from Ukraine are ending up in Nigeria, and Finnish media reportedthat criminal organizationscould betrafficking weapons from Ukraine to the U.S. or various E.U. nations.
As a reminder, without troops/forces on the ground, we're essentially not even trying to keep track of where the funds/weapons/$400/gallon fuel from Pakistan we send over goes. As with Afghanistan, corruption our aid dollars facilitated will/has only bred cynicism toward the government;
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The special inspector general who has overseen aid to Afghanistan since 2012, and some House Republicans, warn of the need for closer oversight of the military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. The scale of the effort is massive. The $113 billion appropriated by Congress in 2022 approaches the $146 billion spent in 20 years for military and humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, though the cost of sending U.S. troops there was far higher.
"When you spend so much money so quickly, with so little oversight, you're going to have fraud, waste and abuse," John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, said in an interview. "Massive amounts."
Ukrainian aid should be terminated post haste until corruption is rooted out, and our own border secured.Quote:
Ukraine has a history of corruption, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made stamping it out a priority.
Ukraine ranks 116th out of 180 nations on Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index. On Feb. 14, the defense minister named new deputies after news reports showed officials in the defense ministry had bought food for troops at inflated prices.
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"We also enabled a lot of oligarchs in Afghanistan warlords," Sopko said. "The fear is if we don't get our ducks in a row, and we don't send a message about serious oversight, we're going to be doing the same thing in the Ukraine. What will happen is you're going to lose the support of the Ukrainians, citizens, the Ukrainians who are fighting and dying, bleeding, just like the Afghans lost faith in their government because of the corruption and the abuses by these oligarchs."
