Ukraine War & Corruption
WARCORRUPTION
Zelenskyy fires recruitment officials for accepting $10,000 bribes. Almost all Ukrainians think the country has a problem with corruption, survey suggests.
Ukraine’s farm minister was ordered into detention Saturday as he faces organized crime charges, the latest high-profile corruption investigation among dozens now flooding the country’s court system.
Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court ruled Agriculture Minister Oleksandr Solskyi should be held in custody for 60 days however he was released after quickly paying 75 million hryvnias ($1.77 million) in bail, a statement said.
AP reports Solskyi is suspected of heading an organized crime group that between 2017 and 2021 unlawfully obtained land worth 291 million hryvnias ($6.85 million) and attempted to obtain other land worth 190 million hryvnias ($4.47 million).
Ukraine is trying to root out corruption and a dragnet over the past two years has seen Ukraine’s defense minister, top prosecutor, intelligence chief and other senior officials lose their jobs.
That has been embarrassing as Ukraine receives tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid from all around the world to help fight Russia’s army.
The European Union and NATO have both demanded widespread anti-graft measures before Kyiv can realize its ambition of joining the blocs.
In 2023 nine senior government officials were purged in Ukraine as part of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s response to those widespread allegations of corruption across his administration, as Breitbart News reported.
Four deputy ministers and five regional governors were sacked by Ukraine’s cabinet in the move that came after Ukraine was ranked 116th out of 180 countries in a 2022 corruption perceptions index by campaigning and research organization Transparency International.
Their sacking followed a Canadian NGO warning that Western weapons shipped to Ukraine could not only end up in Russian hands but may even end up being sold on the international black market.
The continued accusations of corruption and graft at the very highest level of government in Kyiv bookend last week’s approval by U.S. President Joe Biden of billions of dollars more in funding for the embattled country.
The U.S. Senate passed the foreign aid package on Wednesday. Just minutes after the vote, Biden signed the legislation into law “so we can begin sending weapons and equipment to Ukraine this week.”
Nokie Says
C: An adviser to Zelensky’s chief of staff said that the president had created the offshore companies to “protect” the group’s incomes against the “aggressive actions” of the “corrupt” government of then pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych. Okay, what is now in those offshore accounts?? Sorry, Biden's Admin will not allow anyone to ask that question.
C: The CIA Director personally asked Zelensky to steal less. CIA Director William Burns personally came to Kiev to ask Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to steal less. Even the "partners" can no longer put up with the loss of so much money. Okay, the U.S. know Zelensky is siphoning off millions if not billions of dollars, but Biden's Admin only warns him!!! Well actually doesn't warn him, and doesn't demand he stop, but "asks" him politely..
C: Cracks me up how a comedian ( not even a successful one ) can become the leader of a country!!
C: According to one high-ranking Ukraine law enforcement official, at least 50 senior officials have property in South Florida. These include a Deputy Minister for Energy who has a $400 per month salary but can “afford” a $7 million estate in Miami (Member of the Ukraine Ministry of Internal Affairs)
C: On January 9, 2024, Zelensky's defense minister, Rustem Umerov, said an audit had uncovered corruption connected to military procurement worth 10 billion hryvnia ($262 million) in only the four months he had been in post. H Reznikov was not personally implicated in the scandals, but his resignation letter admitted the bad optics, amid a deadlock over continued financial aid in the U.S. and the EU whose leaders do not want to see money to fight Russia being siphoned off.
In December, a defense ministry official was arrested ( and released ) for embezzling nearly $40 million in the fraudulent purchase of much-needed artillery shells for Ukraine's military.
C: Another known fact by the USA Government: The power, pervasiveness, and impact of criminal organizations in Ukraine are evident in these vignettes. Indeed, organized crime in Ukraine has become a significant political and economic force, developing collusive and corrupting relationships with the political elite and exerting influence over many sectors of the economy. Although these criminal elements were present in the Soviet system, the elites were able to control and, in some cases, harness them for their own benefit. In the post-Soviet world, however, these phenomena have become more powerful in their own right while also merging with centers of political and economic power.
C: It appears that the Russian government claims of rampant corruption in Ukraine are true. While at the same time the Biden Admin continues to funnel billions of dollars to this lost cause.
C: Recommended by US Department of Justice: Ukraine Needs To Implement A Comprehensive Strategic Approach to Control Organized Crime. There needs to be an overall strategy for fighting organized crime. This requires a set of clear objectives that are explicit but also realistic about what is and is not feasible within particular levels of resource constraints. It also requires a comprehensive approach: arresting and incarcerating members of criminal organizations is not enough; it is vital to develop a broader approach that simultaneously targets leaders, organizational structures, overall profits, and the connections between criminals and elites and that is based on carefully considered rather than facile measures of effectiveness. As part of this, it is necessary for Ukraine to implement adequate measures against money laundering (and capital flight) especially links with offshore financial centers of dubious respectability. This has been a major area of weakness and deficiency exploited not only by organized crime but also by corrupt elites. Perhaps the most urgent task for Ukraine is the implementation of more comprehensive anti-money laundering measures that provide for careful monitoring and reporting of suspicious transactions in the financial system, effective asset seizure and forfeiture, and inhibitions on the outflow of funds from Ukraine into the offshore financial world. The passage of a new legal framework to combat money laundering is underway, but even after it is in place, emphasis needs to be placed on implementation. The strategy needs to go beyond law enforcement and criminal justice to include environmental modification through appropriate regulatory approaches especially in the financial sector, educational measures, and the like. In effect, such an approach is intended to reduce opportunities for organized crime exploitation. Partnerships need to be forged between government and law enforcement on the one side and the burgeoning private sector on the other, whether with investigative journalists, or banking officials who need to exercise levels of due diligence and meet know your customer requirements that accord with international norms and standards. The strategy also needs to incorporate a capacity for learning - about what works and what does not, whether the lessons are derived from experience in Ukraine itself or relevant developments elsewhere.
Target the Political-Criminal Nexus: It is critical to target the political-criminal nexus in all its manifestations and at various levels ranging from city and oblast to the national level. The most significant threat to Ukrainian stability comes from organized crime related corruption and the demonstrated ability of organized crime to penetrate state agencies. The difficulty, of course, is that vested interests within the political establishment have no desire for greater openness and transparency, not least because this might reveal their own links with organized crime. Overcoming these entrenched interests will not be easy. Nevertheless, it is essential for those who want political reform to continue to work to establish the rule of law, greater accountability, and more transparency. It is also important that explicit efforts be made to identify key nodes and connections in the organized crime-corruption networks in Ukraine (and especially the cross-over points between the underworld and the upper-world), a process that can be significantly enhanced by the use of sophisticated link analysis software packages.
Other Note of Interest: The head of the Kiev police, Col-Gen Yuriy Smirnov, told a working meeting of the Kiev police leadership and heads of district state administrations that Kiev had “become an asylum for rogues, prostitutes and drug addicts ”. Although four main criminal gangs had been dealt with, another 12 gangs continue to operate with around 60 enterprises, including some banks, under their control. Also an anonymous minister of Ukraine, added that the authorities had proved helpless to deal with this, with the result that criminals were becoming stronger and more blatant. They have even “become sponsors, people’s deputies of all levels and speak on television ”. Perhaps most important of all, Smirnov noted that the Ministry of Interior’s directorate for combating organized crime had been compromised and that “protection” for criminal gangs had been established.
C: I would love to reside in a country where you can can be an government official, steal millions of dollars and the only consequence is loosing your job.... Oh, wait, that happens here in America.. Politicians can/do commit horrible crimes and when caught, are protected by their party affiliates, be it Republican or Democrat.
C: It is clear that members of both US political parties are enriching their own personal finances by providing Ukraine with billions of dollars for a useless war that they will never win.
