As always, read the bold, skim the rest.
NPR:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s dismissal of senior officials is casting an inconvenient light on an issue that the Biden administration has largely ignored since the outbreak of war with Russia: Ukraine’s history of rampant corruption and shaky governance.
As it presses ahead with providing tens of billions of dollars in military, economic and direct financial support aid to Ukraine and encourages its allies to do the same, the Biden administration is now once again grappling with longstanding worries about Ukraine’s suitability as a recipient of massive infusions of American aid.
Those issues, which date back decades and were not an insignificant part of former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment, had been largely pushed to the back burner in the immediate run-up to Russia’s invasion and during the first months of the conflict as the U.S. and its partners rallied to Ukraine’s defense.
But Zelenskyy’s weekend firings of his top prosecutor, intelligence chief and other senior officials have resurfaced those concerns and may have inadvertently given fresh attention to allegations of high-level corruption in Kyiv made by one outspoken U.S. lawmaker.
It’s a delicate issue for the Biden administration. With billions in aid flowing to Ukraine, the White House continues to make the case for supporting Zelenskyy’s government to an American public increasingly focused on domestic issues like high gas prices and inflation. High-profile supporters of Ukraine in both parties also want to avoid a backlash that could make it more difficult to pass future aid packages.
U.S. officials are quick to say that Zelenskyy is well within his right to appoint whomever he wants to senior positions, including the prosecutor general, and remove anyone who he sees as collaborating with Russia.
“The EU and the US are greatly disappointed by unexplained and unjustifiable delays in the selection of the Head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Office, a crucial body in the fight against high-level corruption,” the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv said on Oct. 9.
Everyone who has any familiarity with Ukraine knows full well that it’s the most transparently corrupt country in Europe. Zelensky himself ran on a campaign of fighting against corruption. Once he got in office he did precisely nothing to actually fight back against corruption.
A Ukrainian-born congresswoman who came to prominence early in the war recently broke that unofficial silence.
Rep. Victoria Spartz, a first-term Republican from Indiana, has made half a dozen visits to Ukraine since the war began. And she was invited to the White House in May and received a pen used by President Joe Biden to sign an aid package for Ukraine even after she angrily criticized Biden for not doing more to help.
But in recent weeks, Spartz has accused Zelenskyy of “playing politics” and alleged his top aide Andriy Yermak had sabotaged Ukraine’s defense against Russia.
She’s also repeatedly called on Ukraine to name the anti-corruption prosecutor, blaming Yermak for the delay.
Let’s take a look at this Andriy Yermak, shall we?
Well that’s quite the interesting face he has. Something’s making my spidey sense tingle.
Andrii Yermak was born on 21 November 1971 in Kyiv, Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union).[2] Yermak’s Russian born mother Maria met his Kyiv native father Borys on a school trip of a Leningrad school to Kyiv.[3] Yermak’s father is Jewish.[4] They met through mutual acquaintances.[3] The couple married in 1971 and she moved to Kyiv.[3] Yermak has a brother Denis, who is 8 years younger.[3]
So, let’s do a recap of what’s going on. Ukrainian born congresswoman Victoria Spartz, who actually cares about Ukrainians, gets promoted heavily by the media in the early days of the war because she’s shilling hard for Ukraine. In her case, at least it’s understandable, and probably not motivated by Ukraine being the money laundering capital of Europe.
But increasingly she keeps (((noticing))) that the people Zelensky has surrounded himself with don’t seem to give a shit about the actual Ukrainian People. In fact the high level governmental apparatus appears to be nothing more than a money printing machine. This causes her to speak out against the Zelensky Regime, and since she can’t be portrayed as Rutin for Putin the WMD Liars can’t just ignore her.
So then the soyim at NPR find themselves forced to get out in front of the issue, pretending like there’s some gray to this, because our parasite class desperately wants to keep funneling our taxdollars into the black hole that is Ukraine, but as they explicitly say in the article, they are very worried about blowback as people, struggling with serious domestic issues, get increasingly angry about their money being stolen.
“There is no war in the history of the world that is immune from corruption and people trying to take advantage of it,” Crow said. “If there are concerns raised, we will address them.”
Igor Novikov, a Kyiv-based former adviser to Zelenskyy, called many of Spartz’s claims a mix of “hearsay and urban legends and myths.” Allegations against Yermak in particular have circulated for years going back to his interactions with Trump allies who sought derogatory information against Biden’s son Hunter.
“Given that we’re in a state of war, we need to give President Zelenskyy and his team the benefit of the doubt,” Novikov said. “Until we win this war, we have to trust the president who stayed and fought with the people.”
The Russia-Ukraine war entered the coping stage two months ago. They’re trying to wind it down, letting the soyim who are invested in this know that Zelensky will indeed be losing, while also trying to drag this out as long as possible, so as to have the maximum numbers of White People be murdered while stealing the maximum number of your taxdollars.
