By EurAsian
Times
Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelensky embezzled hundreds
of millions of dollars that the US allocated for
the purchase of fuel, according to Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh.
April 15, 2023:
Information Clearing House
-- "EurAsian
Times" --
In his blog, Hersh writes – 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.
The issue of
corruption was directly raised with Zelensky in
a meeting last January in Kyiv 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
Kyiv 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 Kyiv in their new
Mercedes,” the intelligence official told me.
Meanwhile, Hersh,
citing an intelligence official, said that the
sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines and lack
of strategic planning with regard to Ukraine had
caused a growing rift between the White House
and the US intelligence community.
“There is a total
breakdown between the White House leadership and
the intelligence community,” the intelligence
official was quoted by Hersh as saying.
The alleged rift
dates back to the covert operation last fall to
blow up Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines, a move
that was purportedly ordered by President Joe
Biden.
“Destroying the
Nord Stream pipelines was never discussed, or
even known in advance, by the community,” the
official said.
Another issue
dividing the Biden administration and the
intelligence community is the lack of planning
on Ukraine. The official highlighted Biden’s
decision to deploy two brigades a few miles from
the Ukrainian border in response to Russia’s
special military operation.
The actual
manpower of the 101st and 82nd airborne
divisions could total more than 20,000, but
there is still “no evidence that any senior
official in the White House really knows what’s
going on in” the brigades, the intelligence
officials told Hersh.
“Are they there
as part of a NATO exercise or to serve with NATO
combat units if the West decides to engage
Russian 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,” the official
said.
The official said
that while the White House lacks clarity on its
policy in Ukraine, the Pentagon is somewhat
optimistically preparing for an end to the
conflict. Two months ago, the US Joint Chiefs
tasked members of the staff with drafting an
end-of-war treaty to present to the Russians
“after their defeat on the Ukraine battlefield,”
Hersh said, citing a source.
But it remains
unclear what will happen if the Pentagon’s
scenario goes wrong and Ukrainian forces fail on
the battlefield: Will the two American brigades
deployed close to the war zone “join forces with
NATO troops and face off with the Russian army
inside Ukraine?” Hersh asks.
Views expressed in this article are
solely those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
in this article are
solely those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
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