Posted on 04/13/2023 7:58:58 AM PDT by Red Badger
Editor’s Note: Sometimes, my scan of thousands of headlines from conservative and alternative news sites fails me. That’s my excuse for missing this story yesterday about journalist Seymour Hersh’s claim about massive “skimming” of U.S. aid to Ukraine by officials, including the “Hero of Democracy” Volodymyr Zelensky.
Oh, and the CIA apparently knows all about it. Because of course they do. On top of that, Hersh claimed U.S. aid is earmarked for Ukraine to buy diesel fuel… from Russia. This whole drama is like a very bad and deadly soap opera.
Here’s Dave DeCamp from Antiwar reporting on it…
Seymour Hersh: the CIA Knows Ukrainian Officials Are Skimming US Aid
On Wednesday, Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a report on Substack that alleged the CIA was aware of widespread corruption in Ukraine and the embezzlement of US aid.
The report said the Ukrainian government has been using US taxpayer money to purchase diesel from Russia to fuel its military. Hersh said 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.”
Hersh said according to one estimate by CIA analysts, at least $400 million in funds were embezzled last year. Sources told Hersh that Ukrainian officials are also “competing” to set up front companies for export contracts to private arms dealers around the world.
The issue of corruption was raised during a meeting between CIA Director William Burns and Zelensky in January. An intelligence official with direct knowledge of the meeting told Hersh that Burns delivered a stunning message to Zelensky.
Hersh wrote: “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.’”
During the meeting, Burns presented Zelensky with a list of 35 generals and senior government officials whose corruption was known to the CIA. Zelensky responded by dismissing 10 officials who were engaged in flagrant corruption. “The ten he got rid of were brazenly bragging about the money they had—driving around Kiev in their new Mercedes,” the intelligence official said.
Hersh said Zelensky’s “half-hearted response” and the “lack of concern” in the White House angered some US intelligence officials. The intelligence official speaking to Hersh criticized President Biden’s two main foreign policy advisors, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
“They have no experience, judgment, and moral integrity. They just tell lies, make up stories. Diplomatic deniability is something else,” the official said. The official said there was a “total breakdown between the White House leadership and the intelligence community.”
The report said the rift started in the fall when the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines were blown up. According to Hersh’s earlier reporting, President Biden ordered the operation that took out the pipelines. “Destroying the Nord Stream pipelines was never discussed, or even known in advance, by the community,” the official said.
The official said there is “no strategy for ending the war” within the Biden administration and offered more scathing criticism of Blinken and Sullivan.
“Burns is not the problem,” the official said. “The problem is Biden and his principal lieutenants—Blinken and Sullivan and their court of worshippers—who see those who criticize Zelensky as being pro-Putin. ‘We are against evil. Ukraine will fight ’til the last military shell is gone, and still fight.’ And here’s Biden who is telling America that we’re going to fight as long as it takes.”
Hersh’s story comes after a series of leaked top-secret documents from the Pentagon and other government agencies surfaced online. Some of the documents show US war planning for Ukraine and reveal the US doubts Kyiv’s ability to launch a successful counter-offensive, offering a starkly different view of Ukraine’s abilities than what Biden officials have been saying publicly.
How is this 1960s despised leftist suddenly reemerging as the world’s greatest, most active, most effective current reporter, at age 86?
No surprise here.
SPJNK.
Trying to get that feeling again!..............
Agree it’s all a money deal and guess who gets it.
More evidence to support the theory that this is an artificial war. Sadly, there are some people dying, but the fact that they are dying for nothing makes it even sadder.
Here's a test. Remove the name of the person who wrote the story. If it sounds like some unknown conspiracy blogger wrote it, its still sounds funny no matter who wrote it.
The CIA says Ukraine has embezzled 400 million? When and where did the CIA say that, except according to Hersh? Why the CIA, when it is the GAO, not the CIA, that has accounting oversight of Congress's appropriations?
Why 400 million? Isn't that the value of the latest arms transfer as announced by the DOD (link)? What a coincidence.
This is all attributed to anonymous sources close to the top. Do not ask why if the sources are trusted to be close to the top, they are leaking information that embarrases the top.
Any evidence ?
“I would bet that a huge portion of those ‘arms’ wind up in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran and Syria.........................”
So let’s bet.
There's circumstantial evidence.
Zelensky was a comedian of average wealth before becoming PM. Now he's worth over a billion dollars, with homes in Florida, London, and Tel Aviv.
Similar to the circumstantial evidence of 2020 election fraud. Six states in which Trump was leading stopped the count. When they resumed, Trump lost every state.
In both cases, there's no smoking gun. But the circumstances strongly imply something fishy.
KGB is activating all of their assets, bots and trolls spread it around, next the useful idiots take it over.
“Now he’s worth over a billion dollars, with homes in Florida, London, and Tel Aviv.”
Source ?
p
That was my take, this old anti-America guy from the past who is now 86 years old, is suddenly being funneled information with his morning oatmeal for him to disseminate to the media.
https://eprimefeed.com/latest-news/zelensky-found-a-billion-dollars-and-a-villa-in-miami-2/20181/
https://www.veteranstoday.com/2022/03/02/blockbuster-drag-queen-zelensky-found-a-billion-dollars-and-a-villa-in-miami/
https://www.thedailybeast.com/ihor-kolomoisky-the-billionaire-ukrainian-oligarch-behind-zelensky-sanctioned-for-corruption-by-the-us
"Fact check: No proof to back claims on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's assets and income". USA today. April 5, 2023, (link).
President Zelensky Is Not A Billionaire. So How Much Is He Worth? Forbes. April 20. (link).
Social Media Posts Make Unsupported Claims About Zelensky’s Income, Net Worth. Factcheck.org. July 21, 2022. (link).
The "circumstantial evidence" to support Hersh's unsupported claims, are based on unsupported claims. Zelensky ran a successful film and TV production company. What Russian propagandists did, was take the what was know about his business, then twisted it into a narrative of personal corruption and applied it to his Presidency. When Russia has a bad day on the battlefield, in a few days they will claim they inflicted two to three times as many casualties in a single engagement. Another trick is to take a old story and previously reported numbers, and rewrite it to fit the a current need to counter a story by one-upping the Ukrainian side, basically a pissing contest of who can tell the bigger story. Once you see the patterns of how propagandist work, it is easier to filter it out.
One of the basic rules is, no matter how bad the US and western news is, Russian state news is always worse.
“KGB is activating all of their assets, bots and trolls”
I’m not one, so you can KMA.
With a screen name like ‘Grzegorz 246’ it would seem you are a bot or troll.
Neocon lies ! Russia stronk !
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