UK claims Russia is trying to replace the Ukrainian president

We learned this weekend that the White House has offered yet another summit between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin in an effort to lower tensions around the situation in Ukraine. But if the intelligence agencies in Great Britain are correct, Russia may be cooking up a plan to avoid their expected invasion in a very different way. The UK is claiming that Putin plans to summarily replace Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with a puppet president from an obscure pro-Russian political party. While such a plan seems unlikely at first glance, it would probably accomplish the same goals that Putin clearly seeks without the muss and fuss of having to level Kyiv into a pile of rubble. Now that the plan has been exposed, however (assuming such a plan even exists), it’s unlikely that NATO and our other allies would stand for it without some sort of response. (Associated Press)

Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday rejected a British claim that Russia was seeking to replace Ukraine’s government with a pro-Moscow administration, and that former Ukrainian lawmaker Yevheniy Murayev was being considered as a potential candidate.

Britain’s Foreign Office on Saturday also named several other Ukrainian politicians it said had links with Russian intelligence services, along with Murayev who is the leader of a small pro-Russia party that has no seats in the parliament.

The U.K. government made the claim based on an intelligence assessment, without providing evidence to back it up. It comes amid high tensions between Moscow and the West over Russia’s designs on Ukraine.

So the Brits haven’t publicly provided any proof of this claim and Russia is flatly denying it. Of course, Russia would deny it even if it were true, so take that as you will. It’s certainly conceivable that Putin may have been looking at such an action and the British are trying to preemptively put a halt to it by making this public accusation.

What’s really not clear about this alleged plan is how Putin would pull it off even if he wanted to. Absent a dominant military presence or at least the credible threat of one, getting Zelensky to step down and having the people suddenly accept Yevheniy Murayev as the legitimate leader seems highly unlikely. Keep in mind that Zelensky was elected with nearly 75% of the vote. By contrast, Murayev’s obscure, pro-Russian party doesn’t carry enough influence to earn a single seat in the legislature.

At this point, the Russians are using this allegation as a propaganda tool for their own purposes. The Russian Foreign Minister called the claims “misinformation” and told the British to “stop spreading nonsense.” The picture that Moscow is currently trying to paint is fairly obvious. They are blaming the United States and western forces (or “the Anglo-Saxons,” as he put it) for provoking a crisis in the region for our own benefit. The fact that Great Britain recently shipped anti-tank missiles to Ukraine only adds fuel to Moscow’s claims, or at least Putin appears to think so.

Meanwhile, there are signs that the western alliance is already starting to splinter over the situation in Ukraine. Germany, in particular, seems to be trying to walk a diplomatic tightrope. While the Germans have offered medical help to any Ukrainians who need it, they have refused to supply any weapons to Zelensky’s military. In fact, they went one step further and banned Estonia from transferring artillery pieces that were made in Germany to Ukraine. It’s widely believed that Germany’s heavy reliance on Russian natural gas (after they shut down their coal and nuclear plants to save the planet) has left them too dependent on Moscow to get involved in this fight.

And now, as if Russia wasn’t already causing enough trouble, they have reportedly been in talks with Iran to begin construction on a new nuclear power plant, expanding the capacity of Iran’s nuclear facilities at Bushehr. Our attempts at restarting talks regarding the Iran nuclear deal have long since collapsed, and with Russia supporting them openly, the Iranians have pretty much no incentive to cooperate or open up for inspections by the IAEA.

Many of us expected America’s foreign relations position to deteriorate if Joe Biden became president because foreign policy was really never his strong suit. But even I never imagined things would have gone this far downhill so quickly.

U.S. Assistance to Ukraine -— US Embassy in Ukraine Overview

U.S. assistance to Ukraine since 2014 totals over $3.7 billion, plus three $1 billion sovereign loan guarantees.

For FY 2020, Congress has appropriated $698 million: $448 million for State/USAI programs and $250 million for USAI, including $50 million for lethal assistance.

The $448 million appropriation for State/USAI programs includes approximately $285 million in the development accounts and approximately $163 million in the security accounts.

To combat COVID, thus far the United States has provided over $26 million in assistance in new and redirected funding.

This funding will prepare laboratory systems, activate case-finding and event-based surveillance, support technical experts for response and preparedness, bolster risk communication, and support water, sanitation and hygiene interventions for the most vulnerable populations in eastern Ukraine.

Assistance will also counter disinformation, bolster media’s health reporting capacity, expand the government’s ability to continue operating under pandemic-related restrictions, and support Ukraine’s economic recovery.

U.S. assistance priorities:

Security: U.S. programs provide technical assistance, training, and equipment to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and security services to defend Ukraine’s territorial integrity and enhance border and internal security.

Countering Russian Aggression: U.S. assistance works to demonstrate the positive effects of national-level reforms for Ukraine, combat the spread of disinformation, and improve Ukraine’s commercial and energy linkages with Western economies.

Anti-Corruption and Rule of Law: Programs support law enforcement and justice sector reform and governance reforms to increase accountability and effectiveness of governance.

Energy Security: Programs improve Ukraine’s energy security by diversifying supply, establishing competitive markets, accelerating legal regulatory reforms to combat corruption, and ensuring compliance with EU standards and commitments.

Economic Growth: Programs support pro-growth reforms such as an improved land market, privatization, increased competition, and transparent corporate governance. U.S. assistance also supports the growth of small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Cybersecurity: Programs help Ukraine protect itself against Russian cyber-enabled attempts to destabilize it. This includes efforts to support Ukraine’s cyber strategy and legal framework, strengthen incident response capabilities, and harden critical infrastructure.

Humanitarian Assistance: Since the conflict began in 2014, the United States has provided nearly $246 million in humanitarian assistance to date for conflict-affected populations.

Assistance includes emergency shelter, provision and distribution of relief commodities, protection of children and the elderly, psychosocial support, water infrastructure repair, and livelihoods and business development support for internally displaced persons.

Election Support:Programs strengthen Ukraine’s election system; increase citizen participation; increase representativeness and responsiveness of political parties; support effective civic oversight; and promote issue-focused media coverage.

The United States is the largest contributor to OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission, a comprehensive source of information on military and humanitarian developments in areas of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russia.

The United States supports the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, an important source of information and advocacy for human rights in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

Please visit each section/agency’s page for further information.

Politico.com
By KENNETH P. VOGEL and DAVID STERN
01/11/2017

<>Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire; foreign aid billions threatened
<>Kiev scrambles to make amends with president-elect Trump after working to boost Clinton.

Donald Trump wasn’t the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country.

A Politico investigation found
<><>Ukrainian govt officials helped Hillary and trashed Trump, questioning his fitness for office.
<><>They disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption
<><>They suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election.
<><>They helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers.

A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.

The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort’s resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump’s campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine’s foe to the east, Russia. But they were far less concerted or centrally directed than Russia’s alleged hacking and dissemination of Democratic emails.

Russia’s effort was personally directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, involved the country’s military and foreign intelligence services, according to U.S. intelligence officials. They reportedly briefed Trump last week on the possibility that Russian operatives might have compromising information on the president-elect. And at a Senate hearing last week on the hacking, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said “I don’t think we’ve ever encountered a more aggressive or direct campaign to interfere in our election process than we’ve seen in this case.”

There’s little evidence of such a top-down effort by Ukraine. Longtime observers suggest that the rampant corruption, factionalism and economic struggles plaguing the country — not to mention its ongoing strife with Russia — would render it unable to pull off an ambitious covert interference campaign in another country’s election.

And President Petro Poroshenko’s administration, along with the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, insists that Ukraine stayed neutral in the race.

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