26 Jul, 2022 19:23

Ukrainian MP reveals ‘scam of the century’

Ukraine’s state-owned Naftogaz gas company has sought to embezzle $8 billion, Yulia Timoshenko claims

Ukraine’s state-owned Naftogaz gas company is supposedly running a massive embezzlement scheme as it seeks to get billions of dollars from the government for alleged gas purchases even though Ukraine presumably does not need additional gas for the winter, Yulia Timoshenko, an MP and the head of the ‘Fatherland’ party, claimed on Monday.

According to Timoshenko, the lawmakers were about to pass several bills that would grant Naftogaz additional funding for gas purchases ahead of the winter. One of them would grant the company “compensation” from the budget that was worth 150 billion hryvnas ($4.08 billion) to purchase an additional six billion cubic meters of natural gas abroad.

The government planned to use international financial aid provided to Ukraine by Western nations for that “compensation,” Timoshenko’s party wrote in a statement last week. According to Timoshenko herself, Naftogaz also sought to request another 150 billion hryvnas ($4.08 billion) from the budget to increase its authorized share capital and then use the money to buy the gas.

Timoshenko, who also served as Ukraine’s prime minister between 2007 and 2010, also argued that this additional gas purchase for the upcoming winter heating season was not needed at all. According to the MP, Ukraine already produces and stores enough gas for the winter and might even get up to seven billion excessive cubic meters of gas during the upcoming heating season.

On Monday, Timoshenko claimed that Naftogaz was still planning the “scam of the century” by embezzling up to 264 billion hryvnas ($7.18 billion) and “sending them to offshores.” She also called on the administration of President Volodymyr Zelensky to organize a meeting between his administration officials, MPs, and independent experts, as well as diplomats from the G7 nations to discuss the situation.

“Could the president not be aware? Are you not aware of the ‘scam of the century’ that Naftogaz is currently implementing?” she wondered in her post.

The lawmaker said that the Ukrainian MPs are set to discuss the relevant bills later in July. Last week, her party said it had blocked bills to supposedly prevent embezzlement by Naftogaz. RT could not independently verify Timoshenko’s claims related to the Naftogaz activities. Neither the Ukrainian presidential office nor the company itself have commented on the issue yet.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Ukrainian media reported that Naftogaz creditors had rejected the company’s request for a two-year debt payment freeze. Naftogaz made the proposal earlier this month, citing “significant economic and business decline in Ukraine” caused by the ongoing conflict with Russia.

Naftogaz is Ukraine’s largest state-owned oil and gas company and a major source of income, accounting for almost 17% of the country’s total state budget revenue last year.

https://www.rt.com/russia/559675-ukraine-timoshenko-naftogaz-scam-century/

Ukraine doing what Ukraine does again

26 Jul, 2022 22:06

Russia makes Bayraktar bid

Erdogan reveals Putin made an offer for Turkish drones currently supplied to Ukraine

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has revealed that both Russia and the United Arab Emirates are interested in cooperating with Baykar, the company making the Bayraktar and Akinci strike drones. Multiple media outlets in Turkey reported this on Tuesday, citing Erdogan’s remarks at a meeting of top AK party officials the evening prior. The revelation has caused a stir, since Baykar has exported about 50 drones to Ukraine just this year.

The UAE offered to build a Baykar factory, while Russian President Vladimir Putin said “let’s work together,” Erdogan told the party officials on Monday, according to CNN Turk. The reporting was echoed by other outlets, such as TGRT and Haber 7.

No more details were on offer, except that Putin’s alleged proposal came during last week’s meeting in Tehran, where he and Erdogan met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to discuss the peace process in Syria and other matters.

Erdogan brought up the offers in the context of praising the accomplishments of Turkey’s military industry ahead of the party anniversary celebrations coming up in August.

Baykar makes the Bayraktar TB2 and Akinci strike drones, which were credited with helping Azerbaijan defeat Armenia in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. Ukraine ordered a dozen of them prior to the outbreak of fighting with Russia, and has received a total of 50 since February, according to the Defense Ministry in Kiev.

The TB2 drones have also been used in Libya and Syria, but have allegedly fared less well against Russian air defenses in Ukraine. Kiev now reportedly reserves them only for “special missions.”

Just last week, Baykar CEO Haluk Bayraktar told CNN that his company would “never” sell drones to Russia.

“There is a strategic relationship between Turkey and Ukraine, especially in the field of aviation and space,” he said. “Turkey supports Ukraine with armed drone technology. We did not transmit or supply anything to Russia.”

Russia has used domestically-produced scouting and strike drones in Ukraine. Earlier this month, the US accused Moscow of wanting to buy hundreds of strike drones from Iran. Tehran denied the claim.

https://www.rt.com/news/559678-erdogan-putin-bayraktar-drones/

26 Jul, 2022 21:58

Ukraine to ask for free gas

Kiev wants the same deal for natural gas as it gets for Washington’s weapons

Ukraine will ask the US for natural gas deliveries on the same principle as applied to weapons and ammunition, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmigal said on Tuesday. This “gas lend-lease” will be needed for the coming winter, he said. Meanwhile, the European Union has imposed gas rationing.

“The government of Ukraine has decided to apply to the government of the United States of America to provide our state with a ‘gas lend-lease’ for a stable heating season,” Shmigal announced during a cabinet meeting, according to a video posted to his Telegram channel.

“Preparations for the most difficult winter in our history continue, and we are looking for all possible tools to be ready for any scenario,” he added.

While Shmigal did not elaborate on how the proposed arrangement would work, his use of the term “lend-lease” suggests that Kiev expects to get deliveries of US liquefied natural gas (LNG) for free. The US has long sought to sell its LNG on the European market, but it could not compete with the Russian gas on price.

Washington currently sends millions of dollars’ worth of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine under a WWII-era scheme dusted off in April.

Shmigal’s proposal comes as the state-owned gas company Naftogaz has defaulted on its bonds and requested from the government in Kiev to take “full responsibility for raising the funds needed to import natural gas for the upcoming heating season.”

However, former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Timoshenko on Monday accused Naftogaz of embezzlement. The company is engaging in the “scam of the century,” asking for billions to buy gas even though Ukraine doesn’t need it and may even be running a surplus, claimed Timoshenko, who headed the US-backed cabinet in 2007-2010 and now sits in the parliament as the head of the ‘Fatherland’ party.

Meanwhile, the EU has announced a plan to ration gas consumption beginning in August to cope with potential shortages. Most of the bloc’s natural gas is imported from Russia, and Moscow has pledged to fulfill its contracts despite the embargoes Brussels imposed citing the conflict in Ukraine. However, repairs on the main pipeline to Germany – involving sanctioned equipment – have reduced the flow of gas in recent weeks. Berlin has categorically rejected the possibility of using the completed Nord Stream 2 expansion to bypass the problem.

https://www.rt.com/russia/559676-ukraine-lend-lease-gas/

26 Jul, 2022 19:31

How professional lobbyists have worked to generate enthusiasm in Washington for a long proxy military conflict in Ukraine

Kiev's influence blitz in Washington is exposed as revealing Foreign Agent registration figures emerge

If you've wondered why so much Western media coverage of the Ukraine conflict seems to be based on "Kiev says," the answer is largely down to the power of lobbying. The Ukraine is always good and Russia is always bad narrative didn't create itself.

On July 11, Washington DC-based public affairs consultancy Ridgely Walsh registered as a Foreign Agent on behalf of Ukrainian interests with the US Justice Department.

The company – which typically advises Silicon Valley big hitters such as eBay, Google, Snapchat, SpaceX, and Uber – is just the latest Beltway operator to enlist under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA). This is archaic and abstruse legislation thrust to the forefront of the mainstream news agenda during the ‘Russiagate’ hoax of the Donald Trump presidency.

Last July, just 11 US-based firms were registered as lobbyists for Ukrainian clients under FARA. Over the course of 2021, these influencers attempted to pressure Washington to kill the Nord Stream 2 project, increase lethal aid shipments to Kiev, and post ever-more US and NATO forces along Russia’s border.

In the process, they amassed over 10,000 contacts with lawmakers, think tanks, and journalists. This is a staggering figure when one considers the Saudi lobby – one of the largest and most influential in the US – had just 2,834 interactions with these elements in the same timeframe.

Lobbying activity on behalf of Kiev over 2022 will inevitably dwarf even that vast total. Now, the number of registered pro-Ukrainian agents in Washington stands at an unprecedented 24, with six being compelled to register in June alone. Strikingly too, many of these companies are providing their services free of charge – to the extent pro bono lobbying for Zelensky’s government has been dubbed the ‘hottest trend’ in Washington DC political circles.

This phenomenon cannot be attributed to generosity of spirit, or altruism. Some lobbyists work for the Ukrainian government without remuneration for a positive PR boost, others to rehabilitate their reputations and remain in favor with US clients after enthusiastically representing Russian corporations prior to the February 24 invasion. As we shall see, there are potentially other, more spectral factors at work in some cases, too.

It is likely many more firms are effectively representing Ukrainian interests than are officially recognized under FARA. Ridgely Walsh only registered in July, after Vox documented its work chaperoning two Ukrainian pilots around Washington, meeting with journalists, senators and representatives, and Defense and State Department representatives. It had been working for the Ukrainian government for over five months by that point.

The FARA filing indicates that Ridgely Walsh engages directly with Yury Sak, adviser to Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov, and Lieutenant Colonel Denis Smazhny, and an appendix in the document sets out the terms of Ridgely Walsh’s work for Kiev.

It states that the company “provides public relations and media relations support to Ukraine, including by engaging with US media representatives, government officials, NGOs, educational institutions, think tanks, investors, and foreign policy experts; arranging media interviews; developing and pitching op-eds; [and] organizing events.” The firm also creates “opportunities for Ukrainians to interact” with journalists, politicians, pundits, and “other sections of the US public.”

These activities are provided “on a volunteer basis and without compensation,” and are “motivated by [the company’s] compassion for the Ukrainian people.” It adds that Ridgely Walsh’s team includes a Ukrainian national, a reference to its senior director, Veronika Velch.

Velch’s background is colorful, to say the least. In 2013, she spent five months interning at the state-run Voice of America, an asset of US Agency for Global Media, which is funded and controlled by the US government, and openly avows that its output is directly influenced by Washington’s “national security interests.”

After an unexplained seven-month gap in her CV, in May 2014, Velch joined the Center for United Actions, a Washington DC-based NGO “working for the benefit of Ukrainian citizens,” founded by Ukrainian politician and former KGB asset Oleg Ribachuk in 2009…

https://www.rt.com/russia/559386-foreign-agent-registration-document/

26 Jul, 2022 12:14

Ukraine’s military morale in decline – NYT

Those willing to fight are left behind while the unwilling are drafted, according to the US newspaper

Kiev’s “secretive and arbitrary” military recruitment, which leads to the drafting of soldiers who are unwilling to serve, is affecting the morale of the Ukrainian troops fighting against Russia, the New York Times has reported.

There are “signs, five grueling months into the war, that the sense of unity is fraying at the edges” within the Ukrainian military, the paper pointed out in a report on Monday.

Some soldiers are unhappy that they have done “long, hard service,” while many others managed to stay away from service, it said.

“There is no one to replace us. There are too few people. It’s very hard for the guys, psychologically,” a Ukrainian soldier, who’d spent months fighting, commented.

There is also “disillusionment” among Kiev’s troops with the country’s draft system, which “turns away some who want to fight [due to bureaucratic reasons], while taking in others who are unwilling and unqualified,” the NYT reports.

Some Ukrainian commanders have been complaining that “summoning men unwilling to serve is lowering morale among those who volunteered,” it added.

The paper recalled how, in June, Kiev police announced that they had raided two nightclubs in the capital over violating a curfew, and handed a summons for service to more than 200 male partygoers.

This angered Valery Markus, a senior sergeant of the 47th Armed Forces Battalion, who wrote on Facebook that he was “outraged” because the military profession is “being reduced to the level of punishment for these scumbags.”

In his post, Markus slammed Ukraine’s “chaotic” draft system, arguing that poorly trained and unmotivated recruits are endangering the lives of other troops. He also recalled cases of alcoholism and other troubling issues among the newly arrived soldiers.

The Ukrainian government, which has barred all men aged between 18 and 60 from leaving the country, has been undertaking a massive recruitment drive amid the conflict with Russia.

Among other things, it includes recruiters handing out draft notices in the streets and other public places. The authorities claim that only those who are willing to join the military are being summoned, but witnesses report that, in many instances, this is not the case.

The large-scale draft is “drawing accusations that it is secretive and arbitrary, that it violates the government’s own rules,” the NYT wrote, adding that it also “led to a cat-and-mouse game between recruiters and men trying to avoid them.”

Almost 27,000 have already signed a petition on the Ukrainian president’s website, calling on Vladimir Zelensky to outlaw issuing summonses in public places and to establish a transparent process through which service personnel might be called up.

In a report in late June, RT detailed how Kiev is sending people to the front without proper medical checkups and having given them only a few days of the most basic training. The ranks of the Ukrainian military, the report explained, are being replenished not only with those unfit to serve but also with convicts being released from prisons.

It also revealed that groups are being created by Ukrainians on social media to share the locations of recruiters in real time, so that those trying to avoid them could do so. The NYT article also mentioned such groups.

Some are unwilling to fight due to the high Ukrainian losses which, according to NYT, “peaked this spring at 100 killed and almost 400 wounded daily,” but others become draft dodgers for political reasons.

https://www.rt.com/russia/559648-ukraine-morale-militray-draft/