The West Needs Bogeymen (Especially Russia)

The arrest of Ruslan Mahamedrasulov, a Ukrainian detective investigating Zelensky, recalls Vice President Joe Biden forcing the dismissal of a Ukrainian Special Prosecutor in 2015.

After years of lauding the Ukrainian actor, Volodymyr Zelensky as the “Savior of the West,” the U.S. media, including the New York Times, is starting to concede what sensible adults have understood since 2021—namely, that he was installed by the gangster oligarchs who have long run the country for their benefit.

Two days ago, the Times published a report Zelensky’s Government Sabotaged Oversight, Allowing Corruption to Fester, which focuses on allegations Zelensky et al. siphoned off and laundered $100 million from the state-owned nuclear power company, Energoatom.

Mr. Zelensky’s administration has blamed Energoatom’s supervisory board for failing to stop the corruption. But it was Mr. Zelensky’s government itself that neutered Energoatom’s supervisory board, The Times found.

It’s not clear why the Times has now decided to shift its reporting from “Zelensky the Messiah” to “Zelensky the Crook.”

To me, one of the most interesting details to emerge from this scandal is the following recently reported in the Kviv Independent:

Kyiv Appeals Court ordered on Dec. 3 the release of Ruslan Mahamedrasulov, a detective with Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), who had been investigating the country’s largest corruption case involving the state-run nuclear power monopoly Energoatom.

Critics argued that the arrest of Mahamedrasulov was a part of a crackdown on Ukraine’s anti-corruption institutions, describing it as a political move.

Mahamedrasulov, the head of a NABU detective unit, and his 65-year-old father, Sentyabr, were arrested by Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) in July, a day before President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law that that took away the independence of NABU and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO).

After protests in Kyiv and pressure from Western partners, the president signed a new bill on July 31, restoring the independence of these anti-corruption institutions.

Mahamedrasulov and his father were charged with collaborating with Russia for allegedly maintaining contacts with Moscow and serving as an intermediary in cannabis sales to the Russian republic of Dagestan.

Mahamedrasulov in detention

The charge of “collaborating with Russia” is an extremely useful accusation to make against anyone in the West who questions the U.S. Military-Industrial-Complex, NATO, and the vast legion of lobbyists, propagandists, thieves, and assorted parasites who make a handsome living by maintaining the fiction that Russia is the great enemy of the West.

The Mahamedrasulov case reminds me of the incident in December 2016 when then Vice President Joe Biden told Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk that the $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee was contingent on the removal of Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was investigating allegations of corruption in the Burisma Holdings, of which Hunter Biden was a handsomely paid board member.

Readers who are interested in learning more about this story are invited to read my post of last year, Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian Adventure

Burisma was generally understood to be owned by the Ukrainian oligarch, Mykola Zlochevsky, but a 2012 study by the Anti-Corruption Action Center presented evidence that Ihor Kolomoisky held a controlling interest. Kolomoisky, with his media holdings, played a decisive role in getting Zelensky elected (see my post, Ukrainian Corruption Scandal Likely Tip of Iceberg).

Lindsey Graham and other U.S. politicians who have made junkets to Kiev understand how this game works. Both political parties have benefitted enormously from maintaining enmity with Russia, even after the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. This momentous event provided a unique opportunity for the United States and Europe to bury the hatchet with Russia, but our corrupt ruling class preferred to maintain suspicion and hostility for their own selfish designs.

This is why—against the stern advice and warnings of George Kennan (see A Fateful Error) and other Cold War strategists—the U.S. insisted on expanding NATO all the way to Russia’s borders.

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