Don't have a paywall removed version. Sorry. If someone else has it please link.
The Ukraine government, headed by Volodymyr Zelensky, has been using American taxpayers’ funds to pay dearly for the vitally needed diesel fuel that is keeping the Ukrainian army on the move in its war with Russia. It is unknown how much the Zalensky government is paying per gallon for the fuel, but the Pentagon was paying as much as $400 per gallon to transport gasoline from a port in Pakistan, via truck or parachute, into Afghanistan during the decades-long American war there.
What also is unknown is that Zalensky 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. One estimate by analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency put the embezzled funds at $400 million last year, at least; another expert compared the level of corruption in Kiev as approaching that of the Afghan war, “although there will be no professional audit reports emerging from the Ukraine.”
“Zelensky’s been buying discount diesel from the Russians,” one knowledgeable American intelligence official told me. “And who’s paying for the gas and oil? We are. Putin and his oligarchs are making millions” on it.
Many government ministries in Kiev have been literally “competing,” I was told, to set up front companies for export contracts for weapons and ammunition with private arms dealers around the world, all of which provide kickbacks. Many of those companies are in Poland and Czechia, but others are thought to exist in the Persian Gulf and Israel. “I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there are others in places like the Cayman Islands and Panama, and there are lots of Americans involved,” an American expert on international trade told me.
The issue of corruption was directly raised with Zelensky in a meeting last January in Kiev with CIA Director William Burns. His message to the Ukrainian president, I was told by an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the meeting, was out of a 1950s mob movie. 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.”
Burns also presented Zelensky with a list of thirty-five generals and senior officials whose corruption was known to the CIA and others in the American government. Zelensky responded to the American pressure ten days later by publicly dismissing ten of the most ostentatious officials on the list and doing little else. “The ten he got rid of were brazenly bragging about the money they had—driving around Kiev in their new Mercedes,” the intelligence official told me.
Zelensky’s half-hearted response and the White House’s lack of concern was seen, the intelligence official added, as another sign of a lack of leadership that is leading to a “total breakdown” of trust between the White House and some elements of the intelligence community. Another divisive issue, I have been repeatedly told in my recent reporting, is the strident ideology and lack of political skill shown by Secretary of State Tony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. The president and his two main foreign policy advisers “live in different worlds” than the experienced diplomats and military and intelligence officers assigned to the White House;. “They have no experience, judgment, and moral integrity. They just tell lies, make up stories. Diplomatic deniability is something else,” the intelligence official said. “That has to be done.”
A prominent retired American diplomat who strenuously opposes Biden’s foreign policy toward China and Russia depicted Blinken as little more than a “jumped-up congressional staffer” and Sullivan as “a political campaign manager” who suddenly find themselves front and center in the world of high-powered diplomacy “with no empathy for the opposition. They’re decent pols,” he added, “but now we have the political and energy world all upside down. China and India are now selling refined gasoline to the Western world. It’s just business.”
The current crisis is not helped by the fact that Putin also is acting irrationally. The intelligence official told me that everything Putin has been “doing in Ukraine is counter to Russia’s long-term interests. Emotion has overcome rationality and he’s doing things that are totally nonproductive. And so are we going to sit down with Zelensky and Putin and work it out? Not a chance.”
“There is a total breakdown between the White House leadership and the intelligence community,” the intelligence official said. The rift dates back to the fall, when, as I reported in early February, Biden ordered the covert destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea. “Destroying the Nord Stream pipelines was never discussed, or even known in advance, by the community,” the official told me. “And there is no strategy for ending the war. The US spent two years planning for the Normandy invasion in World War II. What are we going to do if China decides to invade Taiwan?” The official added that the National Intelligence Council has yet to order a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on defending Taiwan from China, which would provide national security and political guidance in case such does happen. There is no reason yet, despite repeated American political provocation from both Democrats and Republicans, the official said, to suspect that China has any intention of invading Taiwan. It has lost billions building its wildly ambitious Belt and Road Initiative aimed at linking East Asia to Europe and investing, perhaps foolishly, in seaports around the world. “The point is,” the official told me, “there is no working NIE process anymore.
“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.”
The official cited the little-known and rarely discussed deployment, authorized by Biden, of two brigades with thousands of America’s best army combat units to the region. A brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division has been intensively training and exercising from its base inside Poland within a few miles of the Ukrainian border. It was reinforced late last year by a brigade from the 101st Airborne Division that was deployed in Romania. The actual manpower of the two brigades, when administrative and support units—with the trucks and drivers who haul the constant stream of arms and military equipment flowing by sea to keep the units combat ready—could total more than 20,000.
The intelligence officials told me that “there is no evidence that any senior official in the White House really knows what’s going on in the 82nd and 101st. Are they there as part of a NATO exercise or to serve with NATO combat units if the West decides to engage Russians units inside Ukraine? Are they there to train or to be a trigger? The rules of engagement say they can’t attack Russians unless our boys are getting attacked.”
“But the juniors are running the show here,” the official added. “There’s no NSC coordination and the US army is getting ready to go to war. There’s no idea whether the White House knows what’s going on. Has the president gone to the American people with an informative broadcast about what is going on? The only briefings the press and the public get today are from White House spokespeople.
“This is not just bad leadership. There is none. Zero.” The official added that a team of Ukrainian combat pilots are now getting trained here in America to fly US-built F-16 fighter jets, with the goal, if needed, of flying in combat against Russian troops and other targets inside Ukraine.” No decision about such deployment has been made.
The clearest statements of American policy have come not from the White House, but from the Pentagon. Army General Mark A. Milley, who is chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said of the war last March 15: “Russia remains isolated. Their military stocks are rapidly depleting. Their soldiers are demoralized, untrained, unmotivated conscripts and convicts, and their leadership is failing them. Having already failed in their strategic objectives, Russia is increasingly relying on other countries, such as Iran and North Korea. . . . This relationship is built on the cruel bonds of repressing freedom, subverting liberty and maintaining their tyranny. . . . Ukraine remains strong. They are capable and trained. Ukrainian soldiers are . . . strong in their combat units. Their tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and armored vehicles are only going to bolster the front line.”
There is evidence that Milley is as optimistic as he sounds. I was told that two months ago the Joint Chiefs had ordered members of the staff—the military phrase is “tasked”—to draft an end-of-war treaty to present to the Russians after their defeat on the Ukraine battlefield.
If worse comes to worst for the undermanned and outgunned Ukraine army in the next few months, will the two American brigades join forces with NATO troops and face off with the Russian army inside Ukraine? Is this the plan, or hope, of the American president? Is this the fireside chat he wants to give? If Biden decides to share his thoughts with the American people, he might want to explain what two army brigades, fully staffed and supplied, are doing so close to the war zone.
The official cited the little-known and rarely discussed deployment, authorized by Biden, of two brigades with thousands of America’s best army combat units to the region. A brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division has been intensively training and exercising from its base inside Poland within a few miles of the Ukrainian border. It was reinforced late last year by a brigade from the 101st Airborne Division that was deployed in Romania
Excuse me, what
Oh shit you didn't know that NATO is already on the front line in Ukraine? There's a running joke that it's the international battalion of Ukrainians who are the only ones actively fighting in Ukraine, everybody else is mostly just sitting around or shifting supplies hoping not to be killed.
a plausibly deniable "international battalion" is one thing, US brigades are quite another thing
I had an acquaintance of a friend talk about how he was on the ground actively shooting people in Ukraine in like 2019 (he talked about it in 2021). I'm just like "are you sure that's not classified or something?"
My point is that it likely won't change the outcome, just that the situation will basically become a total occupation of Ukraine by both NATO and Russia. If anything, having actual American battalions on the ground will motivate Russian soldiers more, which is incredibly fucked up, but true.
the outcome I'm worried about is :nuke: and if the US finds an excuse to explicitly enter the war that becomes a near-certainty
I don't even necessarily think it would be Russia that launches them, there are no meaningful restrictions right now on American bloodlust
Right now, Russia and China are the only nuclear powers with functional hyper-sonic missiles, meaning that they can absolutely hit the U.S. if the U.S. decides to hit them through other ICBM tech. The only thing the U S. has going for it is that it has a whole submersible fleet that is likely undetectable. That being said, there have been multiple instances of these subs being hunted down and nearly run aground in the South China Sea, so it's unclear how 'undetectable' they actually are.
These factors act as a restriction on American bloodlust, although the biggest factor is that the wealthy are winning in the U.S. and so are not willing to let the military pull the trigger on nuclear Armageddon.
I don't think America could win but I also don't think that matters right now? The empire in its death throes is picking fights and alienating people all over the place in ways that do not make rational, strategic sense
It makes sense if you think of it as a way to further alienate the American public from the rest of the world. Can't escape hell world if everybody hates you and won't accept you into the country.
Isn't this how every major conflict works? I feel like as far back as Vietnam where you had soviets fighting americans and it didn't trigger nuclear armageddon this sort of things works out on a sort of "I'm not touching you you can't be mad" type thing because, as noted, nobody wants the global nuclear apocalypse
It has lost billions building its wildly ambitious Belt and Road Initiative aimed at linking East Asia to Europe and investing, perhaps foolishly, in seaports around the world. “
there's that imperialism brain again, only able to think in terms of direct profit extraction
I've always wondered, is reddit-brain reflective of U.S. foreign policy brain, or has U.S. foreign policy brain just been infected by reddit brain.
Propaganda on Reddit flows from the US state department. Clearly the former then.
Yeah, but OG reddit culture prior to direct U.S. domestic intelligence ops is also an abstraction and derivation from SA and 4chan, which has always been 'anti-normie'. Unless those cultures are also ops. I really think it's one of those dialectical 'chicken-egg' situations.
I mean the internet was originally an ARPA project. Got opened to universities first and then the public later. Though I think the reality is that the same class strata occupies both.
The intelligence official told me that everything Putin has been “doing in Ukraine is counter to Russia’s long-term interests.
yeah right sure, find it pretty glaring that this is just nakedly asserted with nothing to back it up
I can see it. It's basically a "what are they doing, this is stupid" statement, which I hear all the time from people telling me about someone they're working with.
I can believe he said it, it's just that thing where there are two realities I guess
Ahh you mean you find it hard to see how that official actually believes this?
yeah. either they really thought they'd yell "Russia will invade" for weeks, and then Russia would just sit back and get destroyed by sanctions* while allowing a massive pogrom against Donbas, or he's lying
*(most of which went into effect on the 22nd in response to recognition of DPR and LPR, not the invasion, and were planned at least six months before that)
No shit, the guy was in the pandora papers and his career before presidency was being an actor/comedian.
Its like making Justin Timberlake president. Though it does look like John Stewart is preparing a presidential run and riling up the liberals and radical liberals with the typical talking points on his interviews, so maybe the US is heading in the same direction. Also they just had Trump lol.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/revealed-anti-oligarch-ukrainian-president-offshore-connections-volodymyr-zelenskiy
The leaked documents suggest he had – or has – a previously undisclosed stake in an offshore company, which he appears to have secretly transferred to a friend weeks before winning the presidential vote. Also they just had Trump lol.
The files reveal Zelenskiy participated in a sprawling network of offshore companies, co-owned with his longtime friends and TV business partners. They include Serhiy Shefir, who produced Zelensky’s hit shows, and Shefir’s older brother, Borys, who wrote the scripts. Another member of the consortium is Ivan Bakanov, a childhood friend. Bakanov was general director of Zelenskiy’s production studio, Kvartal 95.
Zelenski is first and foremost a media creature who has through strange fortune ended up as a wartime leader in this age of media distraction. The media hyperventilation about the war in Ukraine makes perfect sense when they have Slavic President Jon Stewart presenting the wartime edition of The Daily Show.
Though it does look like John Stewart is preparing a presidential run
Firstly, Jon Stewart.
Secondly, if he's considering anything more vainglorious than a House run, I'd be shocked. Even then... you'd think Al Franken would have talked him out of it.
I always get the vibe that Stewart feels genuinely weirded out by calls for him to run for political office. He's at least self-aware enough to know that he would just be sticking his hands in the sausage meatgrinder and getting hated on by almost everyone. If only he was self-aware enough to realize that his entire career has been to deactivate people's political anger.
I mean, the thing that Al Franken did was to actually be a really good Senator. Deliver quality constituent services. Be a thorn in the side of social and economic interests hostile to his state residents. Talk good. But he wasn't immune to the scandal-of-the-month shit. So he got tossed on the rubbish bin to make room for a more pliable replacement.
I can see wanting to be an Al Franken style politician. But I can also see him incredibly wary of the kind of shit that brought Franken down. He openly joked about all the skeletons in his closet. And, ffs, the man roomed with Anthony Weiner, so we can only guess what's floating around out there.
If only he was self-aware enough to realize that his entire career has been to deactivate people’s political anger.
Meh. I've heard people say the same shit about The Chapos. Will doing a Movie Mindset episode is counter-revolutionary. Virgil dabbling with electoralism alongside Brianna Joy Gray has planted a knife in the back of proletariat organizing. Felix plays too many video games to offer a serious critique on Israel. Matt isn't just handing out kalashnikovs during his YouTube sermons, so he's not sufficiently belligerent. They're comedians and comedy relieves stress. Relieving stress defuses anger. And defusing anger leads to compliance with the state.
But I've also heard anyone more radical than the Sierra Club is an FBI honeypot. And anyone organizing locally is sectarian. And anyone who isn't in a union is a scab. And anyone who is in a union is bought off by the capitalist system. And anyone who does anything is counterproductive. Unless its me and I'm posting.
I know that Stewart was the only man on television allowed to openly critique the President without getting fired, for at least two years straight. And I know a lot of the modern left latched on to Stewart in the early '00s because his show seemed to be the only outlet for journalism that wasn't either stenography for the current administration or straight-up fascist propaganda calling for something even worse. So I'll give him credit for being the last free port open in the storm.
If that's "deactivating people's anger", idk, man. I'm not sure what the alternative was supposed to look like.
Yeah I've had the distinct vibe from Stewart for a while too. Good to know it's not just my imagination.
I don’t get that from Stewart at all. I get “idealistic idiot” vibes, that he thinks he can actually make a difference through being a liberal journalist comedian (lmao) rather than cynical idiot wants to be president vibes
Maybe you're right and I don't necessarily think it'll be a presidential run but he's got the ego and Trump & Zelensky must be feeding that idea. The degree to which I'm seeing Jon Stewart shit pop up every where lately seems very targeted and astroturfed too.
He's controlled opposition again; sticking it to the man, but with toothpicks instead of a sword. Gives the libs someone to root for.
I know, I know, it's obvious. And yet people have been posting that :LIB: shit here.
Aye, that's fair. I just meant that the vibe of gearing up for some kind of run at office was in addition to being brought back into his old role rather than instead of it.
