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To: BeauBo

I am not defending Putin or Russia.

We have been lied to for years about Ukraine.

Their leadership is worse (more corrupt) than even Russia.

And we are financing the Ukraine.


111 posted on 04/30/2024 9:42:02 AM PDT by Texas Fossil (Texas is not about where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind and Attitude.)
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To: Texas Fossil

“Their leadership is worse (more corrupt) than even Russia.”

I don’t believe that is true.

Objectively, Ukraine, like other former Soviet republics, had deeply ingrained corrupt practices.

I agree that many other former Warsaw Pact countries or former Soviet republics had been much more successful than Ukraine, in reducing corruption, and that Ukraine scored high on International measures of corruption - but not nearly as bad as Russia itself, which has become a fully mafia- dominated Government and society, with no turnover of political power.

Not only has Ukraine had competing political parties democratically change power and prosecute each others corruption over many years, but the EU has been effectively imposing wide-ranging anti-corruption structural reforms, as a pre-requisite for membership. The Ukrainian Rada has enacted the full suite of laws “recommended” by the EU, and has reduced their Government corruption to the level formally required to begin their EU Accession talks. That is a high standard, compared to global norms.

Anti-corruption reforms have been imposed as a requirement for aid, as well as for joining the EU. International investigators have fairly free reign in Ukraine, and high profile oligarchs and politicians have been removed, and in many cases prosecuted. Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov was dismissed for not effectively punishing corrupt Deputy Defense Ministers, when they were uncovered. He was replaced by the highest profile anti-corruption house cleaner in the Ukrainian Government, Rustem Umerov, who has a list of corruption convictions of his subordinates as long as his arm.

Ukraine has been going through an intense period of anti-corruption reform, and especially in the last year, has instituted a full suite of International best practices to reduce corruption into law.


115 posted on 04/30/2024 12:09:43 PM PDT by BeauBo
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To: Texas Fossil

“(Ukrainian) leadership is worse (more corrupt) than even Russia.”

I would also point out, that much of the corruption in Ukraine was the work of Russian Government and Russian mafia, operating in Ukraine.

For example the famously corrupt Burisma Holdings, which paid exorbitant retainers to Hunter Biden as a “Board Member” (in absentia), and on whose behalf Joe Biden intervened to have the prosecutor investigating Burisma corruption fired, was in fact run by a Putin crony oligarch, Mykola Zlochevsky.

The purging of Russian associations alone has greatly reduced corruption in Ukraine, because of the fundamentally corrupt nature of Russian big business under Putin.


117 posted on 04/30/2024 12:23:01 PM PDT by BeauBo
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