https://sputniknews.com/20230224/washington-finds-no-evidence-of-us-aid-to-kiev-being-misused-or-misspent-1107768007.html
Washington Finds No Evidence of US Aid to Kiev ‘Being Misused or Misspent’
Washington Finds No Evidence of US Aid to Kiev ‘Being Misused or Misspent’
A growing number of Americans have been asking just where exactly the tax dollars spent on Ukraine are going.
2023-02-24T13:23+0000
2023-02-24T13:23+0000
2023-02-24T13:49+0000
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The Biden administration has no reason to suspect that any of the $100+ billion in US assistance to Kiev has gone somewhere it’s not supposed to, US Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Samantha Power has assured.“Imagine the counterfactual, where we walk away, or we didn’t show up in the first place, and what that would mean when a dictator who has shut down civil society, shut down independent media, shut down dissenting voices in his own country and can then turn his sights on a neighbor and with impunity take over that country,” Power said.The USAID administrator was presumably referring to Putin, although Zelensky, who has dissolved rival political parties and taken over independent TV channels, and cracked down on the largest denomination of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church over its alleged “ties to Russia,” has himself been accused of the very kind of “dictatorial” behavior Power attributed to the Russian leader.Power went on to praise the “coalition of countries” engaging Russia in Ukraine, pointing to the Ukrainians’ role “on the front lines [and] doing the fighting” while “a coalition of fifty countries rall[ies] behind them.”Power’s comments were met with a surprisingly cool reaction online, with readers of some US outlets known for their decidedly pro-Kiev, anti-Russia bias flooding the news with sarcastic remarks.“I feel better already,” one person quipped. “Oh, well then that settles it,” another jested. “Unelected Samantha tells us ‘trust me’ peasant taxpayers,” a third angrily wrote. “USAID is a front for CIA, a rogue agency committing human rights crimes globally for half a century,” another wrote. “If we don’t investigate, there can’t be any evidence. If you ask us to investigate though, we will call you a fascist, Putin asset and fight it with everything we can,” another suggested.Ukraine’s Troubled Record on CorruptionLong before the long-running security crisis in Donbass escalated into a full-blown proxy war between Russia and NATO, Ukraine was recognized even by many Western observers for its problems with corruption. Exiting the Soviet Union as nominally among the top five economies in Europe in 1992, the resource, industry, agriculture, and energy-rich nation gradually slumped over the decades to the status of one of the poorest economies in the region, as decades of corruption and listening to policy advice from the International Monetary Fund took their toll.Successive Ukrainian leaders have been implicated in corruption scandals, with Zelensky proving no exception. In 2021, the Ukrainian president and members of his entourage were implicated via the Pandora Papers in the creation of a network of offshore holding companies designed to hide assets and evade taxes.The flooding of tens of billions of Western assistance to Kiev last year exacerbated corruption concerns, with media reporting that as little as 30 percent of the military support being sent by the US was actually making it to the front lines, and that small arms sent to Kiev were ending up in European countries in the hands of street gangs. A Sputnik Arabic investigation last August involving making contacts with Ukrainian weapons smugglers on the dark web last summer highlighted smugglers’ readiness to ship US-made M4S assault rifles to Yemen via intermediaries in Poland and Portugal.Zelensky’s appearances alongside disgraced cryptocurrency billionaire Ponzi schemer Sam Bankman-Fried, and Kiev’s decision to hire US hedge fund giant BlackRock for an “advisory role” coordinating Ukrainian investment and reconstruction have also raised eyebrows and sparked concerns, given that BlackRock is no stranger to generating controversy over its ruthless investment practices.“We have already managed to attract attention and have cooperation with such giants of the international financial and investment world as BlackRock, JP Morgan, Golden Sachs [sic],” Zelensky proudly reported in a social media address last month. “Everyone can become a big business by working with Ukraine, in all sectors, from weapons and defense to construction, from communication to agriculture, from transport to IT, from banks to Medicine. And I believe that freedom must always win!” he assured.
https://sputniknews.com/20230120/kiev-seeks-to-ban-ukrainian-orthodox-church-as-part-of-religious-crackdown-1106526197.html
https://sputniknews.com/20211004/zelenskyy-used-offshore-schemes-benefiting-family-friends-occrp-says-1089637486.html
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samantha power, ukraine, volodymyr zelensky, usaid, assistance, support
samantha power, ukraine, volodymyr zelensky, usaid, assistance, support
13:23 GMT 24.02.2023 (Updated: 13:49 GMT 24.02.2023)
This week, Russian President Vladimir Putin estimated that the US and its allies had already poured over $150 billion in weapons and economic “assistance” to Ukraine for the West’s proxy war against Russia, with US support alone topping $113 billion in 2022. A growing number of Americans have asked just where their tax dollars are going.
The Biden administration has no reason to suspect that any of the $100+ billion in US assistance to Kiev has gone somewhere it’s not supposed to, US Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Samantha Power has assured.
“Up until this point, we don’t have any evidence that US assistance is being misused or misspent. But again, the key is not resting on anybody’s good will or virtue. It’s checks and balances, the rule of law, the integrity of officials,” Power said, speaking at a media event on Thursday after being asked about American assistance to Ukraine, which has long been recognized as one of the most corrupt countries in Europe.
“Imagine the counterfactual, where we walk away, or we didn’t show up in the first place, and what that would mean when a dictator who has shut down civil society, shut down independent media, shut down dissenting voices in his own country and can then turn his sights on a neighbor and with impunity take over that country,” Power said.
The USAID administrator was presumably referring to Putin, although Zelensky, who has dissolved rival political parties and taken over independent TV channels, and cracked down on the largest denomination of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church over its alleged “ties to Russia,” has himself been accused of the very kind of “dictatorial” behavior Power attributed to the Russian leader.
Power went on to praise the “coalition of countries” engaging Russia in Ukraine, pointing to the Ukrainians’ role “on the front lines [and] doing the fighting” while “a coalition of fifty countries rall[ies] behind them.”
Power’s comments were met with a surprisingly cool reaction online, with readers of some US outlets known for their decidedly pro-Kiev, anti-Russia bias flooding the news with sarcastic remarks.
“I feel better already,” one person quipped. “Oh, well then that settles it,” another jested. “Unelected Samantha tells us ‘trust me’ peasant taxpayers,” a third angrily wrote. “USAID is a front for CIA, a rogue agency committing human rights crimes globally for half a century,” another wrote. “If we don’t investigate, there can’t be any evidence. If you ask us to investigate though, we will call you a fascist, Putin asset and fight it with everything we can,” another suggested.
Ukraine’s Troubled Record on Corruption
Long before the long-running security crisis in Donbass escalated into a full-blown proxy war between Russia and NATO, Ukraine was recognized even by many Western observers for its problems with corruption. Exiting the Soviet Union as nominally among the top five economies in Europe in 1992, the resource, industry, agriculture, and energy-rich nation gradually slumped over the decades to the status of one of the poorest economies in the region, as decades of corruption and listening to policy advice from the International Monetary Fund took their toll.
Successive Ukrainian leaders have been implicated in corruption scandals, with Zelensky proving no exception. In 2021, the Ukrainian president and members of his entourage were implicated via the Pandora Papers in the creation of a network of offshore holding companies designed to hide assets and evade taxes.
4 October 2021, 04:36 GMT
The flooding of tens of billions of Western assistance to Kiev last year exacerbated corruption concerns, with media reporting that as little as 30 percent of the military support being sent by the US was actually making it to the front lines, and that small arms sent to Kiev were ending up in European countries in the hands of street gangs. A Sputnik Arabic investigation last August involving making contacts with Ukrainian weapons smugglers on the dark web last summer highlighted smugglers’ readiness to ship US-made M4S assault rifles to Yemen via intermediaries in Poland and Portugal.
Zelensky’s appearances alongside disgraced cryptocurrency billionaire Ponzi schemer Sam Bankman-Fried, and Kiev’s decision to hire US hedge fund giant BlackRock for an “advisory role” coordinating Ukrainian investment and reconstruction have also raised eyebrows and sparked concerns, given that BlackRock is no stranger to generating controversy over its ruthless investment practices.
“We have already managed to attract attention and have cooperation with such giants of the international financial and investment world as BlackRock, JP Morgan, Golden Sachs [sic],” Zelensky proudly reported in a social media address last month. “Everyone can become a big business by working with Ukraine, in all sectors, from weapons and defense to construction, from communication to agriculture, from transport to IT, from banks to Medicine. And I believe that freedom must always win!” he assured.
