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Former Ukrainian politician Andriy Portnov, a top adviser to ousted President Viktor Yanukovych (thanks, CIA!), was shot dead this morning outside the American School of Madrid shortly after student drop-off. Spanish media reports that 2-3 suspects are being hunted. Portnov faced treason charges in Ukraine and was accused of collaborating with Russia ... Former president Yanukovych was overthrown in 2014. According to the US Treasury Department, Portnov was "credibly accused of using his influence to buy access and decisions in Ukraine's courts and undermining reform effort." He was sanctioned by the US for corruption and bribery in 2021 under the...

For more than a decade, the United States has nurtured a secret intelligence partnership with Ukraine that is now critical for both countries in countering Russia... Nestled in a dense forest, the Ukrainian military base appears abandoned and destroyed, its command center a burned-out husk, a casualty of a Russian missile barrage early in the war. But that is above ground. Not far away, a discreet passageway descends to a subterranean bunker where teams of Ukrainian soldiers track Russian spy satellites and eavesdrop on conversations between Russian commanders. On one screen, a red line followed the route of an explosive...

KIEV, Ukraine — The crisis over Ukraine's disputed presidential election intensified Sunday, as a key eastern province called a referendum on autonomy andthe opposition demanded the current president fire his prime minister, the official winner of last week's votethat has bitterly divided this former Soviet republic. The opposition warned President Leonid Kuchma it would block his movementsunless he fired PrimeMinister ViktorYanukovych and fulfilled other demands within 24 hours. Earlier, Kuchma called on the opposition to end its four-day blockade of government buildings, saying compromise was the only solution to the crisis that has developed into a tense political tug-of-war between...

A number of Joe Biden critics have questioned why the president's pardoning of his son Hunter Biden goes back to 2014. President Biden announced on Sunday that he signed a full and unconditional pardon for his son over federal tax and gun crimes, for which Hunter Biden was due to be sentenced this month. The pardon covers offenses he "has committed or may have committed or taken part in" between January 1, 2014, and December 1, 2024. Several MAGA figures have noted that 2014 is the year the younger Biden joined the board at Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Republicans have...

Hunter Biden’s abandoned MacBook was a window into the Biden family business, a secret international influence peddling operation. New York Post columnist Miranda Devine, who exposed many of Hunter’s secrets in her book “Laptop from Hell,” returns with “The Big Guy,” the story of how the FBI, the CIA, the State Department, the IRS and the Department of Justice conspired to protect Joe Biden and his family. Here, in a second exclusive excerpt, she explains the Ukrainian intrigue that surrounded Joe and Hunter:

In early 2014, violent street protests in Kyiv forced the resignation of the pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. Within four months, Russia had annexed Crimea and was backing separatists in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine.Ultranationalist protest groups — instrumental in the toppling of Yanukovych government — transformed overnight into volunteer battalions like Right Sector and Azov, then rushed to the eastern front, where they were lauded as patriots for undertaking the heavy fighting while the under-resourced Ukrainian state military scrambled to mobilize. Azov in particular has leveraged its social capital by integrating into the Ukrainian National Guard, where it...

BERLIN — The Swiss government on Wednesday said it will initiate proceedings to confiscate more than 100 million francs ($104 million) in assets of a close associate of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Switzerland’s governing Federal Council said it is providing support to Ukraine as Kyiv is facing “certain difficulties” in its efforts to confiscate the money, which have been compounded by the current war. But it said the move is unrelated to sanctions imposed on Russia this year. The government said the assets of Yanukovych associate Yuriy Ivanyushchenko and family members were frozen in Switzerland following the ouster of...

George Soros’ involvement in Ukraine is well known, his name is linked to the Orange Revolution and regime changes in the country. Like in Georgia. George Soros acknowledged in an interview with CNN, that he actively contributed to the overthrow of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. “I created a foundation in Ukraine before it became independent from Russia. “The foundation has functioned since then and has played an important role in current events,” explains the financier who established the International Renaissance Foundation, in Ukraine, as part of the Open Society Foundations, in April 1990....

KYIV. Nov 20 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukrainian members of parliament have demanded the presidents of Ukraine and the United States, Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump, investigate suspicions of the legalization of $7.4 billion by the "family" of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych through the American investment fund Franklin Templeton Investments, which they said has ties to the U.S. Democratic Party. At a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Wednesday, MP Andriy Derkach announced that deputies have received new materials from investigative journalists about international corruption and the participation of Ukrainian officials in it. "Last week, November 14, the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO),...

As Donald Trump began his meteoric rise to the presidency, the Obama White House summoned Ukrainian authorities to Washington to coordinate ongoing anti-corruption efforts inside Russia’s most critical neighbor. The January 2016 gathering, confirmed by multiple participants and contemporaneous memos, brought some of Ukraine’s top corruption prosecutors and investigators face to face with members of former President Obama’s National Security Council (NSC), FBI, State Department and Department of Justice (DOJ). The agenda suggested the purpose was training and coordination. But Ukrainian participants said it didn’t take long — during the meetings and afterward — to realize the Americans’ objectives included...

A former Prime Minister of Ukraine has said that authorities in that country must investigate Joe Biden’s son Hunter to establish whether or not his role on the board of a Ukrainian gas company complied with the nation’s laws. "It should be investigated so that the 'i's can be dotted and the 't's crossed," Mykola Azarov told Reuters Saturday, adding: "If he [Hunter Biden] was simply on the books and getting money, then that could be seen as a violation of the law." Azarov, a former Prime Minister under Ukraine's pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, did not specify to which laws...

House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff’s opening statement at today’s hearing, a grilling of National Intelligence Director Joseph Maguire, was remarkable. To begin with, he recited a parody of the conversation between President Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky that was so absurd, it would not have made it into a Grade-C mob movie. A telling decision by Schiff, a capable former prosecutor: If you have an extortionate conversation, you quote it. If you need to imagine it into something it isn’t, that means it is not an extortionate conversation. Also telling: Chairman Schiff came flying out of the starting...

Former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates testified in federal court Thursday against Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig about the ex-counsel's Ukraine-related work for Paul Manafort, Politico reported. Gates was a top lieutenant to Manafort, a former Trump campaign chairman, for approximately 10 years. During that time, Manafort supervised a 2012 review conducted by Craig of the abuse-of-power trial of ex-Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, according to Politico. While the review was presented as an independent probe of the trial, it was commissioned by Manafort's primary client, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, and bankrolled by Victor Pinchuk, a steel oligarch and...

Fifty-five pages of texts between Fox News host Sean Hannity and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort make their way online.

While special counsel Robert Mueller has concluded there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, some of the key people in creating the Russia-collusion narrative themselves have ties to a foreign nation. Both the Democratic National Committee as well as Fusion GPS—the company hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign to research the Trump campaign—were using Ukrainian sources in their efforts to discredit Trump. Serhiy Leshchenko, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, was a common thread involved in Democratic opposition research efforts into former Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort. Leshchenko, along with Artem Sytnyk, the...

Updated | Alex van der Zwaan, a lawyer who once helped prepare a report for the Ukrainian government, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to lying to federal agents as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Documents charging van der Zwaan are dated February 16 and were filed publicly Tuesday morning. His sentencing is scheduled for April 3. Van der Zwaan, 33, is a Dutch lawyer who helped prepare a report for the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice on ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in 2012, according to court documents. He worked at the time...

Former Obama White House Counsel and Clinton-linked attorney Greg Craig may soon be charged by the Justice Department for engaging in illegal unregistered overseas lobbying, in a case initially probed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller -- a development that would make him the first Democrat to face prosecution amid the long-running Russia investigation. The case centers on lobbying work that Craig performed in 2012 for the Russian-backed president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, while Craig was a partner at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. Craig allegedly never registered as a foreign agent under a U.S. law known...

Clinton-connected lobbyist Tony Podesta knew he was working with Paul Manafort on behalf of a Ukrainian politician, according to an indictment released Friday by the special counsel’s office. Podesta, Manafort and Mercury Public Affairs all failed to register as foreign agents of Ukraine for the work. Manafort entered a plea agreement with the special counsel Friday. Two lobbying firms, including one owned by Democratic superlobbyist Tony Podesta, knowingly worked with Paul Manafort at the direction of the Ukrainian government, according to an indictment released Friday by the special counsel’s office. The indictment, which was released ahead of an expected plea...

Have you ever noticed what Paul Manafort’s major crime was? After two years of investigation, after the predawn raid in which his wife was held at gunpoint, after months of solitary confinement that have left him a shell of his former self, have you noticed what drew the militant attention of the Obama Justice Department, the FBI, and, ultimately, a special counsel who made him the centerpiece of Russia-gate? According to the indictment Robert Mueller filed against him, Manafort was an unregistered “agent of the Government of Ukraine.” He also functioned as an agent of Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s president from...

WARNING: Profanity Victoria Nuland, Asst. Sec. of State for Europe, phone call to US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, in a phone call leaked to the news media on 4 February 2014. [expletive] the EU What's really important here is the level of planning for the coup that overthrew the elected President Viktor Yanukovych, which brought to power (as heard on the recording) a group of select individuals described as "moderate democrats." In fact, most of them, including Oleh Tyahnybok (whom Nuland insists the new head of state consult four times weekly), are a far-right nationalist faction with overt and...