Billionaire Zelensky-Backer & Ex-Minister Among Ukrainian Officials Targeted In More Anti-Corruption Raids

ER Editor: We had published originally on several key people in Zelensky’s government stepping down. See

Ukraine Rocked By Corruption Scandal, Wave Of Top Officials Resign As Taiwan & Kuwait Govts Fall

Below are two reports, one from Zerohedge and one from Jordan Schachtel.

Kolomoisky, as the articles below demonstrate, is a very key figure, with a history of funding the Ukrainian Neo-Nazis, as well as being a figure with ties to Israel, for significant levels of corruption, as well as being the force behind Zelensky coming to power in the first place. This is significant and it’s not obvious who is behind it. Is it Zelensky truly cleaning things up, or some other force? Is he even there? This all plays into a public narrative that makes Ukraine look dubious, either for corruption-made-public or for a tyrannical ‘Zelensky’ conducting a ‘purge’ as Schachtel is terming it.

And whatever happened to that war?

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Billionaire Zelensky-Backer & Ex-Minister Among Ukrainian Officials Targeted In More Anti-Corruption Raids

Tyler Durden's Photo TYLER DURDEN

In yet another case of curious timing, given it comes a day after the US Treasury issued a (dubious) statement saying US authorities have found no evidence of misuse of the billions in US aid funds flowing into Ukraine, Wednesday has witnessed more anti-corruption raids on a number of prominent government-linked figures.

Among the homes raided by Ukraine’s security agency, the SBU, included that of the former interior minister Arsen Avakov, as well as one of the the country’s richest men with ties to Zelensky, Ihor Kolomoisky.

Billionaire Igor Kolomoisky & Ukraine’s president

In Kolomoisky’s case, state security services released photos of the Ukrainian billionaire’s home being searched. The probe is reportedly related to massive embezzlement and fraud cases centering on Ukraine’s two largest oil firms.

“In a statement that made no mention of the tycoon, the economic security bureau said it had exposed large-scale embezzlement schemes and tax evasion worth 40bn hyrivnia ($1bn; £880m) by the former management of Ukraine’s two biggest oil firms, Ukranafta and Ukrtatnafta,” BBC reports.

Kolomoisky had already long been under US sanctions over “significant corruption” allegations during his time as governor of the wider Dnipropetrovsk region in 2014.

His money has reportedly been instrumental in bolstering anti-Russian defense militias in the Donbass (ER: Kolomoisky is known for FUNDING the neo-Nazis in Ukraine). He’s also well-known as a powerful backer of President Volodymyr Zelensky, as various reports now point out:

Mr Kolomoisky is also a wealthy businessman involved in Ukrainian media, oil and banking. His TV channel gave Mr Zelensky his break with the comedy series Servant of the People, before he backed the former actor’s bid for the presidency.

It’s clear that Zelensky is now feeling pressure from Europe and Washington (ER: could there be another force at play?) to ‘get tough’ on corruption, given in some cases popular support in the West for the tens of billions in foreign and defense aid being funneled to his government’s coffers is beginning to wane.

It appears the proverbial ‘house is being cleaned’… much too belatedly, when it comes to entire central government offices, following last week’s mass resignations of at least ten high level officials and multiple more regional officials related to widespread corruption:

Referring to the latest anti-corruption swoop as “spring landings”, Mr Arakhamia listed further investigations, including the dismissal of the entire leadership of the customs service. MP Oleksiy Honcharenko said the acting head and two deputies had been fired.

The main tax office in Kyiv was also raided.

US authorities have long pressed Kiev authorities to seize Kolomoisky’s assets and take expansive legal action against the oligarch…

As for the investigation of former Interior Minister Avakov, it relates to government purchases of six French-made helicopters in 2018. An inquiry into the deal urgently began after last month’s crash of one of the helicopters in a residential area which killed over a dozen people, including top ministry officials, significantly among them Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi.

Avakov while confirming his home was raided on Wednesday firmly rejected any wrongdoing: “The investigation took interest in the contracts on the purchase of Super Puma (Airbus Helicopters H225) helicopters by the Interior Ministry,” he said in a statement.

“The investigators behaved properly although the reasonability for such an investigative action looks a bit stupid six years after the conclusion of the contract,” he complained, according to Interfax.

Source

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Zelensky’s Great Purge continues, launching police raid against oligarch who fell out of favor with Biden Admin

The Ukrainian president’s longtime political and financial patron is no longer in the good graces of the people in charge.

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky just sicced his secret police (Ukraine’s SBU) on Igor Kolomoisky, a billionaire oligarch who was once wholly responsible for financing the Ukrainian president’s rise to power. The significance of the story — regarding Zelensky turning on his longtime patron and Kolomoisky’s other significant ties — was entirely buried by foreign and state media, with most merely referring to the situation as another in a series of “anti-corruption” actions.

A quick rundown on why Mr. Kolomoisky is significant:

  • He owned Burisma when it employed Hunter Biden.
  • He financed Zelensky’s entire television, business, and political career, including his rise to the presidency.
  • He once funded Ukrainian militias, but later argued that Kiev should engage in a detente with Russia. This part is critical, as Kolomoisky’s good standing with the West shifted dramatically after this decision.
  • Since then, he became the subject of an FBI probe and U.S. sanctions.
  • He has since had his assets seized and nationalized by the Ukrainian government, and he has been stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship, despite being born in Ukraine and living his entire life in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s secret police is seizing not only Kolomoisky’s assets, but the property of several high-profile figures as part of Zelensky’s highly-publicized anti-corruption tour, through which the Ukrainian president has received endless praise in the western media. All of these raids and seizures are happening entirely outside of the bounds of any semblance of the rule of law. They are simply being ordered by Zelensky’s office, and justified under martial law rules.

The truth is that these are anything but anti-corruption raids.

Zelensky is running a blitzkrieg operation that is dissolving and disbanding all checks on the president’s authority, concentrating power into the hands of an increasingly authoritarian regime in Kiev, which has now embraced ethnic cleansing and punishes thought crimes.

A couple weeks ago, Zelensky’s three highest ranking Interior Ministry officials were killed in a “helicopter crash” over Kiev, which is hundreds of miles removed from the current battlefield.

Countless regional governors and deputy ministers have been stripped of authority, again, without any due process. Zelensky’s deputy minister of defense, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, and the deputy prosecutor general are but many of the high-ranking individuals who were recently removed due to “corruption” allegations.

This is not so much an anti-corruption maneuver as it is a Stalinesque Great Purge, the difference being that the USSR-born Zelensky seems not to be the top dog in his own country.

The Kolomoisky raid highlights a Ukraine whose sovereignty has been sold to foreign actors, with the new regime in charge having tasked an actor, Volodomyr Zelensky, with the role of managing the day to day operations in Kiev. In the meantime, Ukraine continues devolving into a failed state, as its leadership remains committed to the abuse of realpolitik and maintaining its maximalist war-footing against a much more powerful neighbor. It all comes to the delight of the western defense industry, which continues to use Ukraine as a munitions laundering opportunity.

Source

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