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Volodymyr Zelensky

US Corporations Cash In On Ukraine’s Oil And Gas

April 28, 2023 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. , , , , ,
US fossil fuel corporations like ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Halliburton are in discussions to take over the Eastern European nation’s oil and gas industry, as Kiev pushes to increase production to replace Russian energy exports. This comes after Ukraine’s Western-backed leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, virtually opened the New York Stock Exchange in September and announced that his country is “open for business”, pledging more than $400 billion in “public-private partnerships, privatization, and private ventures” for US companies. In an attempt to bring an end to the war, China has taken the lead in proposing peace talks. Brazil’s President Lula da Silva has done the same.

Seymour Hersh: Trading With The Enemy

April 19, 2023 Seymour Hersh. , , , , , ,
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 Zelensky 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 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.

Zelensky Admits He Refused To Implement Minsk Peace Deal

February 11, 2023 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy Report. , , ,
Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky admitted to a major German newspaper that he refused to implement the Minsk peace deal with Russia. The Minsk accords were two agreements, negotiated in Belarus; signed by Ukraine, Russia, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE); and overseen by Germany and France, in the so-called Normandy Format. The accords aimed to stop the conflict in Ukraine that broke out following a violent US-backed coup in 2014, which set off a civil war between Kiev’s pro-Western, post-coup government and pro-Russian separatists in the east. The first deal, known as Minsk I, was reached in 2014, but failed. This led to Minsk II in 2015. This agreement was ostensibly more stable, but Ukraine never truly implemented it. In an interview with the German daily Der Spiegel, published on February 9, Zelensky made it clear that he intentionally chose to sabotage Minsk.

On The Influence Of NeoNazism In Ukraine

December 31, 2022 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , ,
The U.S. relationship with Ukrainian fascists began after the Second World War. During the war, units of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) took part in the Holocaust, killing at least 100,000 Jews and Poles.  Mykola Lebed, a top aide to Stepan Bandera, the leader of the fascist OUN-B, was recruited by the C.I.A. after the war, according to a 2010 study by the U.S. National Archives.  The government study said, “Bandera’s wing (OUN/B) was a militant fascist organization.” Bandera’s closest deputy, Yaroslav Stetsko, said: ““I…fully appreciate the undeniably harmful and hostile role of the Jews, who are helping Moscow to enslave Ukraine…. I therefore support the destruction of the Jews and the expedience of bringing German methods of exterminating Jewry to Ukraine….”

We’ve Reached Peak Zelensky – Now What?

December 29, 2022 Robert Freeman, Consortium News. , , , , , ,
When the president of the poorest, most corrupt nation in Europe is feted with multiple standing ovations by the combined Houses of Congress, and his name invoked in the same breath as Winston Churchill, you know we’ve reached Peak Zelensky. It’s a farcical, almost psychotic over-promotion, probably surpassed only by the media’s shameful, hyperbolic railroading of the country into war with Iraq, in 2003. Paraphrasing Gertrude from Hamlet, “Methinks the media doth hype too much.” Let’s remember that before ascending to his country’s presidency, Volodymyr Zelensky’s greatest claim to fame was that he could play the piano with his penis. I’m not joking. And he ran on a platform to unite his country for peace, and for making amends with Russia. Again, I’m not joking.

Ukraine War Tolls Death Knell For NATO

December 27, 2022 M.K. Bhadrakumar, People's Dispatch. , , , , , , ,
The defining moment in US President Joe Biden’s press conference at the White House last Wednesday, December 21, during President Zelensky’s visit, was his virtual admission that he is constrained in the proxy war in Ukraine, as European allies don’t want a war with Russia. To quote Biden, “Now, you say, ‘Why don’t we just give Ukraine everything there is to give?’  Well, for two reasons. One, there’s an entire Alliance that is critical to stay with Ukraine.  And the idea that we would give Ukraine material that is fundamentally different than is already going there would have a prospect of breaking up NATO and breaking up the European Union and the rest of the world… I’ve spent several hundred hours face-to-face with our European allies and the heads of state of those countries, and making the case as to why it was overwhelmingly in their interest that they continue to support Ukraine… They understand it fully, but they’re not looking to go to war with Russia. 

The Democrats Are Now The War Party

December 26, 2022 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. , , , , ,
The Democrats position themselves as the party of virtue, cloaking their support for the war industry in moral language stretching back to Korea and Vietnam, when President Ngo Dinh Diem was as lionized as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. All the wars they support and fund are “good” wars. All the enemies they fight, the latest being Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, are incarnations of evil. The photo of a beaming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris holding up a signed Ukrainian battle flag behind Zelensky as he addressed Congress was another example of the Democratic Party’s abject subservience to the war machine. The Democrats, especially with the presidency of Bill Clinton, became shills not only for corporate America but for the weapons manufacturers and the Pentagon.

In Ukraine, It’s Patriot vs. Iskander For Now

December 25, 2022 M.K. Bhadrakumar, People's Dispatch. , , , , , , ,
With the Republicans poised to take narrow control of the House of Representatives in the US Congress in January, the Joe Biden Administration is hoping to extract as much funding as possible for the proxy war in Ukraine against Russia before the locus of legislative business shifts on the Hill. The White House is requesting nearly $45 billion in new funding. Who else could canvass better than an accomplished actor-politician? Enter President Vladimir Zelensky. When Zelensky proposed on Sunday that he’d find time to visit Washington for a few hours on Wednesday, President Biden promptly accepted. For Zelensky too, it pays to be seen holding Biden’s hands amidst swirling rumors of a power struggle in Kiev. To be sure, from the strategic perspective, the backdrop of Zelensky’s decision to travel to Washington urgently would have been the one-day trip by Russian President Vladimir Putin to Minsk on Monday, which shook up the geopolitics of European security.

Hero Worship Of Zelensky In Washington

December 25, 2022 Jeremy Kuzmarov, Covert Action Magazine. , , , , ,
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky received a hero’s welcome in his visit to Washington on December 21. Departing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi compared him to Winston Churchill, while President Joe Biden compared him on Hanukkah to Judah the Maccabee, who defended the Jewish temple against the Greek King Antiochus’ forces in ancient times. Befitting a great liberator, Biden promised Zelensky $1.85 billion more in security assistance, including the Patriot surface-to-air missile battery and precision aerial munitions that will be used to bomb the people of eastern Ukraine. In his speech before Congress, Zelensky claimed that Ukraine had “defeated Russia in the battle for the minds of the world,” and that its “victories gave the Ukrainian people courage,” which “inspires the entire world.”

Zelensky Rings New York Stock Exchange Bell; Euro Dips Below $1

September 9, 2022 Alexander Rubinstein, The Grayzone. , , ,
Ukrainian President and part-time celebrity endorsement-provider Volodymyr Zelensky rang the bell at the opening ceremony for the New York Stock Exchange on September 6. Zelensky’s virtual arrival to Wall Street was intended as an opportunity to pitch his government’s newly-launched #AdvantageUkraine campaign to investors. The appeal represents a collaboration between the Ukrainian government and WPP, the largest advertising firm in the world. The president’s Wall Street event coincided with an impending economic collapse in Western Europe, where the European Investment Bank has admitted the Ukraine proxy war could “push many into poverty.”

Assad And Zelenskyy – A Contrast In Media Coverage

July 24, 2022 Gavin O'Reilly, Popular Resistance. , , , ,
In the early hours of Friday morning, Israeli airstrikes on the Syrian capital of Damascus resulted in the deaths of three Syrian soldiers, only a month after Damascus International Airport was bombed under similar circumstances, with Tel Aviv alleging that it was being used by Iran to transport weapons into the Arab Republic, where Tehran is operating in an anti-terrorist capacity under official invite from the Syrian government.  This air campaign, which began in 2013 following the Iranian intervention in the proxy war on Syria which had begun two years previously, has stepped up markedly in recent years, with Israel recently threatening to assassinate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in an airstrike should the Islamic Republic continue to co-operate with its Arab counterpart.

Servant Of The Corrupt

July 23, 2022 Pedro Gonzalez, Consortium News. , , ,
In February 2021, by order of President Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine shut down three domestic television channels, accusing them of spreading Russian “propaganda.” Three months later, Zelenksky arrested Viktor Medvedchuk, who was at the time leading the second-biggest party in Ukraine’s national parliament, the pro-Russia and Eurosceptic Opposition Platform for Life (OPZZh). Zelensky didn’t have trouble incinerating vaunted democratic norms well-before Russia crossed the Rubicon into Ukraine this year. So it was no surprise when he did it again amid the war in late March, invoking emergency powers under martial law to nationalize TV channels and ban 11 opposition parties, including OPZZh — all supposedly done in the name of combatting Russian misinformation and Russian sympathizers, even though OPZZh’s then-chairman, Yuriy Boyko, denounced the war and called for a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine.

Only Four Of 55 African Leaders Attend Zelensky Call

June 23, 2022 Ben Norton, Multipolarista. , , ,
Western governments have tried to rally the nations of Africa to join their war on Russia. But the vast majority of the continent has ignored their pressure campaign. For months, Ukraine attempted to organize a video conference between the African Union and Western-backed leader Volodymyr Zelensky. France and Germany put heavy pressure on African governments to attend the Zoom call, which was held on June 20. The conference ended up being a total failure, however. The heads of state of just four of the 55 members of the African Union joined the meeting. In other words, 93% of the leaders of the African continent did not attend the video conference with Zelensky. This was a clear sign of Africa’s overwhelming neutrality in the proxy war between the West and Russia.

The Real Zelensky: From Celebrity Populist To Unpopular Neoliberal

April 30, 2022 Natylie Baldwin, The Grayzone. , , , ,
A comedic actor who rose to the country’s highest office in 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky was virtually unknown to the average American, except perhaps as a bit player in the Trump impeachment theater. But when Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Zelensky was suddenly transformed to an A-list celebrity in US media. American news consumers were bombarded with images of a man who appeared overcome by the tragic events, possibly in over his head, but ultimately sympathetic.  It didn’t take long for that image to evolve into the khaki-clad, tireless hero governing over a scrappy little democracy and single-handedly staving off the barbarians of autocracy from the east.

Political Repression In Ukraine

March 29, 2022 Phil Wilayto, Popular Resistance. , , ,
In the early morning of March 19, 2022, agents from the federal Security Service of Ukraine, the SBU, showed up at the apartment of Yuri Tkachev, editor-in-chief of the online publication Timer, based in the southern Black Sea port of Odessa. What happened next was reported on Timer’s website (1), quoting journalist and human rights activist Oksana Chelysheva (2), who said she had spoken with Tkachev’s wife: “According to [Oksana], when Yuri opened the door of the apartment, he did not show any resistance. Despite this, the SBU dragged him to the site, laying him face down. They also asked Oksana to leave the apartment. No violence was used against her. “Oksana claims that through the open front door she saw how one of the SBU officers entered the bathroom and stayed there for several minutes. … After this man left the bathroom, the SBU took Yury [sic] and Oksana back to the apartment, where the search began.”
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