Several Ukrainian Officials Are Fired as Corruption Scandal Balloons

This is the headline in the latest online edition of The New York Times.

The article goes on to say:

“The dismissals included governors of several regions in the biggest upheaval in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government since the Russian invasion began.”

For its part, The Financial Times also has a front page report on the same entitled “Ukraine officials resign as Volodymyr Zelensky moves to ease corruption concerns.” The subtitle goes on to inform us: “Deputy ministers, officials and regional governors among those replaced as president seeks to clean up public life.”

So what is going on?

To their credit, the FT do offer an explanation for the purge, telling us that “President Volodymyr Zelensky…sought to defuse concerns over corruption at a time when he is requesting more western weaponry to repel Russian forces.” We are told the resignations and firings are all about “misuse of state and military funds.”

One of the officials forced out was publicly accused of concluding deals to procure food supplies to the army at inflated prices. Can you imagine that? Others were said to have traveled abroad at the expense of foreign donors. Gosh!

The FT concludes its article with an upbeat comment from the President of the Kyiv School of Economics: “it’s a good sign that the system responded to public pressure. It’s also a sign that democracy here works.”

So much for mainstream spin. Now I take pleasure in offering another analysis of what is going on which does not differ from the link of causality buried in the FT article but takes it several steps further into how the real world works.

My source for this alternative news is the Russian talk show Time Will Tell (Vremy Pokazhet) which by chance I found when flipping channels on the satellite television in my hotel located on the remote and colonial ambiance island La Digue in the Seychelles.

For a more precise geographical positioning, I am now 500 meters from the Plantation House build in 1818, now a national museum-park, where the soft porn movie “Return of Emmanuel” was filmed, and where some Bacardi rum adverts were also filmed. Population of the island – 2,613. Sole industry – tourism.

This is not a bad place to sit out a full-blown NATO-Russia war. Maybe the Russian tourists here know something. In any case my hotel subscribes to Russia’s state broadcaster Pervy Kanal, the hosts to Time Will Tell.

This particular show I know well as a legitimate competitor to the Evening with Solovyov programs that I have cited in my reporting of the past couple of years. The European ban on Russian satellite television has prevented me from following Pervy Kanal. But here we are together again on La Digue.

Today’s show dealt with a number of issues, starting with Polish ambitions to seize the Lvov region of Western Ukraine and to establish ‘colonial control’ over a rump state of Ukraine reaching as far east as the Dnepr. The presenter also informed the audience about the request Polish officials are now quietly passing along to the European Union that they be reimbursed for the cost of the Leopard tanks that Warsaw is about to gift to Kiev.

Then the show moved on to the issue before us, the purge of high officials in the Zelensky regime. The presenter gave us the missing link on a platter, a link that our Western media giants just seem to have overlooked: namely the connection between the ongoing purge and the visit of CIA director William Burns to Kiev last week for talks with Zelensky.

That unexpected visit had been described on CNN as serving to reassure Zelensky of steadfast U.S. support, as well as to share US intelligence on likely Russian military action in the foreseeable future. Of course, there are other US officials who could do this as well or better than Burns, particularly those wearing military uniforms. How much more logical that a CIA Director would be briefing Zelensky on what he must do to clean the stables, to publicly throw out his corrupt buddies if he is to have any chance of getting further funding from the now Republican controlled House It would not be inappropriate to call this ‘regime change’

Panelists on the talk show identified leading members of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party who have been forced from office as folks who were aligned with Boris Johnson. Their replacements are expected to be people more closely aligned with the United States.

So much for democracy at work in Ukraine, Messrs Financial Times..

Gilbert Doctorow is a Brussels-based political analyst. His latest book is Does Russia Have a Future? Reprinted with permission from his blog.

© Gilbert Doctorow, 2023

15 thoughts on “Several Ukrainian Officials Are Fired as Corruption Scandal Balloons”

    1. The key words are “preparing” and “in the future.” It’s leverage to get some of those oligarchs to play ball, whether that means pressuring Putin et al. to wrap up the war, or just arranging for some tragic falls from windows.

      1. I will go with the later Knapp. NATO has surrounded Putin since the fall of the Berlin Wall. This was produced in 2016 by an economic channel I have had for years and which reveals the truth with NATO.

        Nov 29, 2016 The Map That Shows Why Russia Fears War With US

        https://youtu.be/L6hIlfHWaGU

        1. Several Ukrainian Officials were fired due to corruption, now it’s Zelensky’s turn to be fired and Biden’s turn in the US to be fired but let’s neither bring Trump nor DeSantis or it will be “Meet the New Boss, Same As The Old Boss”.

          1. Not exactly friend. Trump accomplished what many US presidents did not in all of my lifetime.

            Oct 29, 2020 Robert O’Brien – Trump’s Foreign Policy

            Donald Trump is the first American president since Ronald Reagan not to initiate a foreign war. Moreover, peace is breaking out in the Middle East. National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien explains the Trump approach.

            https://youtu.be/bPaXimOGva4

            US presidents and their wars.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f1181f251d8d63c376b2a80b3d60b8132d741601fd80b5a4bffb94633e2ebd74.jpg

          2. Trump’s belligerence was equal to his predecessors. Lifting rules of engagement everywhere and sanctioning several countries to the teeth. He killed with impunity just like the rest.

          3. And I applauded him for that. But those were photo ops and were going nowhere. You don’t bring John Bolton along if you’re trying to actually negotiate something peaceful.

          4. There weren’t many other options since we were in so many when he took office. He escalated (lifting rules of engagement to make killing easier) and sanctioned. He did try hard to start one with Iran but backed down. Then his supporters gave him credit for stopping a war he singlehandedly tried starting.

          5. Trump may not have started any wars like George Warmonger Bush and Ehud Barack Obama did but he was not exactly a peace time president.
            Trump scrapped the Iran Deal, sent a drone to kill Soleimani ,rolled back trade and travel with Cuba. continued sanctions against Venezuela and illegitimately recognized Guaido as its misleader.
            He was the 1st president to support Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Territories and moved the embassy to Jerusalem. East Jerusalem is the Arab Section of the city.
            The good things Trump did were having peace talks with Kim Jong Un since his war of words did not work, he talked about ending the war in Afghanistan but should have gone further by ending it. Russia started no wars when he was POTUS.

          6. There is always so much more than what we get in the CIA run media friend. Like these facts easily verifiable with little effort.

            18 Nov 2012 Israel and the U.S. CREATED Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda Creating the Enemies We Now Fight Against

            We’ve extensively documented that the U.S. and Israel created Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in an attempt to fight other enemies.

            https://sott.net/en253764

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