Ukraine Corruption Backgrounder

Yesterday Gateway Pundit ran a blog that provided an overview of Ukraine's corruption problem, while pointing out that, so far, with the Biden and Kerry cases, we've still only seen the tip of the Ukraine corruption iceberg--and, in all probability, the US connection. As I've said before, the likelihood is that there are Republicans involved as well as Democrats--Manafort certainly comes to mind, but we're also learning about Romney and his Deep State adviser. Nevertheless, to this point the Democrat involvement seems overwhelmingly dominant, if party affiliation can be construed as a real factor:

Ukraine Burisma Story is Massive – Involves BILLIONS of IMF and US Funds Looted and Lost by Bank Connected to Burisma Holdings!

Here's GP's capsule version of the issues that the Ukraine Hoax has brought to public view:

The Biden (and now Kerry) scandal in the Ukraine is much more than about the money paid to Hunter Biden for being a Board member at the largest gas producer in the Ukraine, Burisma Holdings.  The real scandal involves billions in funds from the IMF and US in aid that has gone missing. 

Burisma (Ukraine’s largest oil and gas provider) has been the subject of many recent news articles because of its scandalous close-knit ties with President Obama’s Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Kerry.  (Yes, Kerry is involved here too) 

... 

Where are the billions of dollars that went missing in the Ukraine?  What do Obama, Biden and Kerry and their children know about where the money is and are they connected?

There's lots more. However, fascinatingly, GP links to a 2015 article by old line Lefty Alexander Cockburn--Undelivered Goods: How $1.8 billion in aid to Ukraine was funneled to the outposts of the international finance galaxy. I'll quote the final paragraph first, in which Cockburn warns against the Washington Establishment consensus on Ukraine--Ukraine good and and vital to US national interests, Putin bad. End of story--but, says Cockburn, we make that the end of the story at great risk:

Complex realities such as those related here do not intrude on official Washington pronouncements, where all is black and white, and the party line shifts inexorably closer to endorsing U.S. military engagement in the Ukrainian quagmire. At least we should know who is taking us there.

You'll recognize that narrative from the Russia Hoax which, interestingly, was probably just forming when Cockburn wrote those words in August, 2015.

In his article you'll come across names that you're probably familiar with. Names like Dmitry Firtash--who was virtually, if not actually, the first figure whom Andrew Weissmann reached out to--with Team Mueller still in its infancy--in hopes of framing Donald Trump.

Another familiar name that figures prominently both in Russia Hoax reporting and in Cockburn's Ukraine article is that of Victoria Nuland. Cockburn's introduction to Nuland tells us much about the bipartisan nature of the Washington Establishment and Deep State that is attempting to reject the foreign body that is Donald Trump. Cockburn notes Nuland's deep ties to GOPe bogeyman (for leftists) Dick Cheney, yet the important role she played in the Obama administration and the Hillary Clinton DoS. Think about that a bit, and then consider what Cockburn writes here, including the last bit, in which Nuland expresses on behalf of the Obama administration an attitude more often attributed to Trump himself:

[Tom] Daschle’s trip [to Ukraine] was sponsored by the National Democratic Institute, an affiliate of the congressionally funded National Endowment for Democracy, headed by ur-neoconservative Carl Gershman, who some time ago identified Ukraine as “the biggest prize” for Russia and deployed considerable amounts of the taxpayer dollars at his disposal to securing it for the West. However, it has been Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland who has played the most active role in pursuit of the prize. Therefore, her interventions in Ukrainian politics and the realities of politics and business in that country deserve closer attention than they have so far received. 

“Toria” Nuland, as I reported in the January 2015 issue of Harper’s Magazine, has enjoyed a remarkable career, occupying a succession of powerful positions through changing administrations, despite her close neocon associations over the years both marital—her husband being leading neocon ideologue Robert Kagan—and political, notably as a national-security adviser to former vice president Dick Cheney. In the buildup to the 2008 Russo-Georgia war, for example, Nuland, at the time ambassador to NATO, urged George Bush to accept both Georgia and Ukraine as NATO members. Since Georgia’s then president and neocon favorite, Mikheil Saakashvili, had high hopes of drawing the United States in on his side in the coming conflict, this was a dangerous initiative. Fortunately, Bush, by that time leery of neocon advice, stood firm against her pleas. 

Despite her ongoing proximity to power, Nuland attracted little public attention until the leak of an intercepted phone call gave the rest of us a taste of how she operates. Incautiously chatting on her cell on January 28, 2014, with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, as the Kiev street protests against elected Ukrainian Viktor Yanukovych gathered momentum, Nuland and the diplomat mulled over who should now rule the country. Their candidate was “Yats,” the opposition politician Aseniy Yatsenyuk, as opposed to another opposition candidate, former world heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, favored by various European powers. Nuland was determined to keep Klitschko out and, as she infamously remarked on that call, “fuck the E.U.”

Just in case you're under the illusion that there are any good guys in the power structure of Ukraine--including Zelenskyy--read both GP and Cockburn.