https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-27/ukraine-tapped-obama-admin-hurt-trump-help-clinton-and-protect-bidens

In January, 2016, the Obama White House summoned Ukrainian authorities to Washington to discuss several ongoing matters under the guise of coordinating "anti-corruption efforts," reports The Hill's John Solomon.

The January 2016 gathering, confirmed by multiple participants and contemporaneous memos, brought some of Ukraine’s top corruption prosecutors and investigators face to face with members of former President Obama’s National Security Council (NSC), FBI, State Department and Department of Justice (DOJ).

The agenda suggested the purpose was training and coordination. But Ukrainian participants said it didn’t take long — during the meetings and afterward — to realize the Americans’ objectives included two politically hot investigations: one that touched Vice President Joe Biden’s family and one that involved a lobbying firm linked closely to then-candidate Trump. -The Hill

The Obama officials - likely knowing that lobbyist Paul Manafort was about to join President Trump's campaign soon (he joined that March), were interested in reviving a closed investigation into payments to US figures from Ukraine's pro-Russia Party of Regions - which both Paul Manafort and Tony Podesta did unregistered work for, according to former Ukrainian Embassy political officer Andrii Telizhenko.

The 2014 investigation focused heavily on Manafort, whose firm was tied to Trump through his longtime partner and Trump adviser, Roger Stone.

Agents interviewed Manafort in 2014 about whether he received undeclared payments from the party of ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, an ally of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and whether he engaged in improper foreign lobbying.

The FBI shut down the case without charging Manafort

Telizhenko and other attendees of the January, 2016 meeting recall DOJ employees asking Ukrainian investigators from their National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) if they could locate new evidence about the Party of Regions' payments to Americans.

"It was definitely the case that led to the charges against Manafort and the leak to U.S. media during the 2016 election," said Telizhenko - which makes the January 2016 gathering in DC one of the earliest documented efforts to compile a case against Trump and those in his orbit.

Nazar Kholodnytskyy, Ukraine’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor, told me he attended some but not all of the January 2016 Washington meetings and couldn’t remember the specific cases, if any, that were discussed.

But he said he soon saw evidence in Ukraine of political meddling in the U.S. election. Kholodnytskyy said the key evidence against Manafort — a ledger showing payments from the Party of Regions — was known to Ukrainian authorities since 2014 but was suddenly released in May 2016 by the U.S.-friendly NABU, after Manafort was named Trump’s campaign chairman.

"Somebody kept this black ledger secret for two years and then showed it to the public and the U.S. media. It was extremely suspicious," said Kholodnytskyy - who specifically instructed NABU not to share the "black ledger" with the media.

"I ordered the detectives to give nothing to the mass media considering this case. Instead, they had broken my order and published themselves these one or two pages of this black ledger regarding Paul Manafort," he added. "For me it was the first call that something was going wrong and that there is some external influence in this case. And there is some other interests in this case not in the interest of the investigation and a fair trial."

and somewhere along the way, Biden hits the prosecutor out of the park…

>>6333547

I'm looking into this comment which appears to shed some more light on Canadian assistance to the fuckery….

Obama and Biden financed the two arms of the Ukrainian military that were causing trouble on the Russian border. One was the Nazi units and the other was the Chechen units flown in and given their own special status separate from the Nazi units. The Chechen units flown in came from Afghanistan and Syria. Canada's former Prime Minister Stephen Harper helped arm and finance both and today the Nazi dame who is Trudeau's Foreign Minister continues Canada's legacy supporting the Obama/Biden deep state missions on Russia's borders. It has come back to haunt the Trudeau government as it now looks like a landslide victory coming to push him and his Nazi dame out of Office. Now the whole scheme is unravelling and shows the CIA/CSIS support for terrorist operations to destabilize peace talks around the world.

>6333561

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/30/russia-ukraine-war-kiev-conflict

Meanwhile, the US and its European allies impose sanctions and dictate terms to Russia and its proteges in Kiev, encouraging the military crackdown on protesters after visits from Joe Biden and the CIA director, John Brennan. But by what right is the US involved at all, incorporating under its strategic umbrella a state that has never been a member of Nato, and whose last elected government came to power on a platform of explicit neutrality? It has none, of course – which is why the Ukraine crisis is seen in such a different light across most of the world. There may be few global takers for Putin's oligarchic conservatism and nationalism, but Russia's counterweight to US imperial expansion is welcomed, from China to Brazil.

In fact, one outcome of the crisis is likely to be a closer alliance between China and Russia, as the US continues its anti-Chinese "pivot" to Asia. And despite growing violence, the cost in lives of Russia's arms-length involvement in Ukraine has so far been minimal compared with any significant western intervention you care to think of for decades.

The risk of civil war is nevertheless growing, and with it the chances of outside powers being drawn into the conflict. Barack Obama has already sent token forces to eastern Europe and is under pressure, both from Republicans and Nato hawks such as Poland, to send many more. Both US and British troops are due to take part in Nato military exercises in Ukraine this summer.

The US and EU have already overplayed their hand in Ukraine. Neither Russia nor the western powers may want to intervene directly, and the Ukrainian prime minister's conjuring up of a third world war presumably isn't authorised by his Washington sponsors. But a century after 1914, the risk of unintended consequences should be obvious enough – as the threat of a return of big-power conflict grows. Pressure for a negotiated end to the crisis is essential.

https://theintercept.com/2016/07/01/nato-general-emails/

The emails, however, depict a desperate search by Breedlove to build his case for escalating the conflict, contacting colleagues and friends for intelligence to illustrate the Russian threat. Karber, who visited Ukrainian politicians and officials in Kiev on several occasions, sent frequent messages to Breedlove — “per your request,” he noted — regarding information he had received about separatist military forces and Russian troop movements. In several updates, Breedlove received military data sourced from Twitter and social media.

Karber, the president of the Potomac Foundation, became the center of a related scandal last year when it was discovered that he had facilitated a meeting during which images of purported Russian forces in Ukraine were distributed to the office of Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and were published by a neoconservative blog. The pictures turned out to be a deception; one supposed picture of Russian tanks in Ukraine was, in fact, an old photograph of Russian tanks in Ossetia during the war with Georgia.

Breedlove stayed in close contact with Karber and other officials who shared his views on the Ukrainian conflict.

“Phil, can’t we get a statement to counteract the Russians on use of force? what can I do to help? If the Ukrainians lose control of the narrative, the Russians will see it as an open door,” wrote retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who forwarded on his messages with Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. He also passed along concerns from the Bulgarian president that Bulgaria might be Russia’s next target.

In other messages, Clark relayed specific requests for the types of military aid desired by Ukrainian officials. In addition to radar systems and other forms of military equipment, Clark recommended that Breedlove “encourage Ukraine to hire some first rate pr firms and crisis communications firms in U.S. and Europe.” He added, “They need the right tools to engage in information warfare.”

Ukraine did hire several D.C. lobbying and communication firms to influence policymakers. In June 2015, the government signed a deal with APCO Worldwide, an influential firm with ties to senior Democratic and Republican officials.

In an email in February 2015, Karber told Breedlove that “Pakistan has, under the table, offered Ukraine 500 TOW-II launchers (man-portable version) and 8,000 TOW-II missiles,” adding that deliveries of the anti-tank weapons could begin by the end of the month. “However,” Karber wrote, “Pakistan will not make these deliveries without U.S. approval; moreover they will not even request that approval unless they have informal assurance that it would be approved.”

these emails appear to have gone "poof"

http://dcleaks.com/emails/Philip_Mark_Breedlove-Email_Archive/html/breedlove_karber/CLOSE%20HOLD.html

Ukraine seemed to be the place to visit in 2016….

http://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/community-leaders-share-their-thoughts-on-ukraine-at-25-2/

Paul Grod, national president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress:

Canada is at the forefront of international support for Ukraine.

///

Canada was at the forefront of supporting the rights of the Ukrainian people to peaceful demonstration and freedom of speech during the Revolution of Dignity and is now one of the world’s leaders in supporting Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty in the face of Russia’s brutal war of aggression. When former Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper visited Ukraine multiple times since Russia’s invasion and its Foreign Minister John Baird visited during the Maidan, each time they invited a Ukrainian Canadian delegation to participate as a key stakeholder that would continue the work after they returned to Canada. Canada was instrumental in influencing the leaders of the G-7 to exclude Russia. Canada provided military equipment expeditiously when Ukraine needed it the most. We have ensured that Ukraine is a country of focus and a top recipient of humanitarian aid and technical assistance from Canada. Canada’s contingent of 200 soldiers is currently the largest international force training Ukrainian armed forces, in addition to the dozens of Canadian police that are training and funding Ukraine’s new police force. This support and assistance was secured in no small part because of the efforts of our community.

////

The relationship between our Canada and Ukraine is grounded in a special cultural relationship – 1.3 million Canadians trace their roots back to Ukraine. It is however more than votes or cultural interests. This relationship has evolved into one of shared values, mutual economic interests and geopolitical interests.

Canada’s new government, elected in October 2015, has demonstrated continued strong support for Ukraine. One of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s first official bilateral foreign visits was to Ukraine, where he travelled on July 10-12, 2016. Prime Minister Trudeau continued the tradition of previous Prime Ministers in inviting a sizeable delegation from the Ukrainian Canadian Congress.

During Prime Minister Trudeau’s visit the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement was signed, opening a new chapter in relations between our countries, and additional Canadian support to Ukraine was announced. Speaking to Canadian Armed Forces personnel who are training Ukrainian soldiers in Yavoriv, Prime Minister Trudeau stated, “The reason we’re here supporting Ukraine is not just because Ukraine is a good friend to Canada and the Ukrainian people are good friends to us. It’s because the values, the principles that they’re fighting for are the values and principles that we stand for and that we fight for.”

>>6334088

the official 2014 fact sheet of US support to Ukraine…

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/18/fact-sheet-us-support-ukraine

In pursuit of these objectives, the U.S. government has provided approximately $291 million in assistance to Ukraine this year as well as a $1 billion loan guarantee. This includes the President’s announcement today of a new package of assistance totaling $53 million, of which:

More than $7 million will be directed to international relief organizations to provide humanitarian aid to those affected by the conflict in Ukraine’s east.

$46 million in security assistance will support Ukraine’s military and border guards. This is in addition to the $70 million in security assistance we have previously announced.

With today’s announcement, the U.S. government has committed to providing $116 million in equipment and training to Ukraine’s security forces to help Ukraine better monitor and secure its border, operate more safely and effectively, and preserve and enforce its territorial integrity. Ukraine’s security forces include their Armed Forces, National Guard, and State Border Guard Service.

This assistance includes the provision of body armor, helmets, vehicles, night and thermal vision devices, heavy engineering equipment, advanced radios, patrol boats, rations, tents, counter-mortar radars, uniforms, and other related items.

The United States has also begun a process led by U.S. European Command and Department of Defense civilian and military experts to work with Ukraine to improve its capacity to provide for its own defense and set the stage for longer-term defense cooperation. This includes medical advisory and security assistance advisory teams.

In May, Ukraine closed on its offering of a $1 billion sovereign bond, guaranteed by the United States. With the support of the proceeds raised by the loan guarantee, Ukraine is implementing a new social protection program to compensate vulnerable households for increases in gas and heating tariffs, which will reach 30 percent of the population. The U.S. loan guarantee was part of a coordinated international effort to ensure Ukraine has the resources it needs, which will provide $27 billion to Ukraine as it implements its IMF program.

Immediately following Ukraine’s change in government in March, the U.S. government deployed advisors to help stabilize the financial sector and implement key reforms in partnership with the Ukrainian Finance Ministry and National Bank. These advisors are supporting a range of reforms related to issues such as banking supervision, public sector debt management, infrastructure finance, and taxation.

though it is Canada free press it blurbs on Biden….

https://canadafreepress.com/article/bidens-nepotism-and-hypocrisy-in-ukraine

The entangled web of Biden and son in Ukraine’s corruption is made more curious by the coincidence of dates when Biden visited Ukraine. During one of those visits in early 2016, a criminal investigation into stolen IMF credits to the tune of $1.8 billion was closed down by Ukraine’s prosecutor’s office.

This $1.8 billion was only a part of the $5.5 billion reportedly laundered by Kolomoisky through PrivatBank over a ten-year period. The massive fraud uncovered by a Kroll Associates investigation was launched at the request of President Poroshenko. Not surprisingly, Kolomoisky’s 1+1 TV channel is one of the biggest critics of Poroshenko for his attacks on oligarchs.

The corrupt origins of Burisma and mafia-like business practices of Kolomoisky point to Hunter Biden being a hypocrite

Although Kolomoisky, who illegally has Swiss and Israeli passports in addition to his Ukrainian one, is Ukraine’s most infamous corporate raider, Swiss authorities are refusing to extradite him to Ukraine.

The corrupt origins of Burisma and mafia-like business practices of Kolomoisky point to Hunter Biden being a hypocrite , as selling his name undercuts any credibility from Biden’s incessant complaining about Ukraine backsliding. Burisma lacks transparency—the very service that Hunter Biden claimed to bring to the company.

The Obama administration was no strategic partner and friend of Ukraine in spite of the fact that both the U.S. and Russia had, in effect, a treaty obligation to support Ukrainian security under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, under which Ukraine gave up the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal. Obama’s betrayal of Ukraine’s security in the face of Russian aggression was matched only by Biden’s undermining of U.S. soft power in Ukraine. With continued Russian aggression, Ukraine is a key ally in disrupting Putin’s objectives.

U.S. policy toward Ukraine can only be successful when it is devoid of duplicity, empowered by U.S. values and supportive of the security of its allies. This is what differentiates President Trump from Obama.

How many folks had their hand in the shenanigans in Ukraine?

https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2014/3/7/the-next-soros-pierre-omidyars-ukraine-connection.html

Last week, the Silicon Valley website Pando Daily broke the story that eBay founder Pierre Omidyar has been funding several Ukrainian opposition groups that were instrumental in removing former president Viktor Yanukovych from power.

Given that Omidyar has also donated $250 million to create the independent journalism network First Look Media, there was some question as to why this was not disclosed, and if it created a conflict of interest.

Of course, as with most non-profits, the records are there if you care to look, which led Glenn Greenwald torespond that he had no idea Omidyar was funding Ukrainian opposition groups, but it wouldn’t have affected his reporting anyway, and went on to slam the original reporter for making it appear as if this was some sort of conspiracy when a quick Google search revealed a press release from the Omidyar Network dated September 15, 2011, detailing the $335,000, two-year commitment to Ukraine’s Centre UA, in support of its initiative, New Citizen.

New Citizen is described as a coalition of more than 50 Ukrainian civil society organizations seeking to secure a greater voice for citizen participation in the political process and holding government to account, and according to the release, the Omidyar Network lent its support to build out New Citizen’s technology platforms, enable education and outreach, and expand the program with the Ukraine.

The incident brings to mind the recent grant that WNET returned to the Arnold Foundation due to the perceived conflict of interest, and also criticisms of longtime pro-democracy supporter George Soros, whose footsteps Omidyar seems to be following with his grants supporting technology platforms and outreach for these groups.

As Greenwald goes to some length to point out, money from people like Omidyar and Soros finds its way to a lot of different places. But that doesn’t mean that the groups that receive funding don’t retain their independence, or are somehow swayed by their ideologies. In fact, it would be more logical to presume the opposite—that these groups receive funding because they already have ideologies that these billionaires are drawn to. And sure, sometimes some of these groups are going to do things that will make some people question the funders’ intentions, but those are usually people who are trying to invent a story where there really isn’t one.

Yes, Omidyar’s money helped affect a regime change in Ukraine, and reasonable people can argue whether or not this was a good thing, or whether the proper tactics were used. But it doesn’t appear to have had an effect on how the media outlets Omidyar funds are covering the story, and it’s hard to ascribe any intent behind his grant to Centre UA beyond what was publicly stated when he made it. And whether or not Omidyar agrees with the tactics or the outcome, there’s no reason to think that he won’t continue to increase his support of pro-democracy groups and independent media throughout the world.

Interesting video of the US Ukraine involvement with screen caps of Breedlove/Clarke emails that anon can't seem to unearth from the memory hole…

>>6334298

https://www.kyivpost.com/business/poroshenko-says-ukraines-mriya-to-overfly-venice-at-opening-of-58th-biennale.html

kraine’s Culture Ministry said the Mriya would fly over Venice and cast a shadow over the Giardina della Biennale Park for several seconds.

“On board the plane there will be a HDD disc with information about all current living male and female artists of Ukraine, or artist collectives, which have agreed to participate in the project,” the ministry said.

The curator of the project Open Group continues to accept applications for participation in the performance.

The 58th International Art Exhibition in Venice will take place from May 11 to November 24, 2019.

The Venetian Gardens (Giardini Veneziani) is a park zone in the historical center of Venice in the Castello quarter, where the Art Festival of the Venice Biennale has been held since 1895. Now there are 30 pavilions in the park, 29 of which “belong” to certain countries and are used to hold exhibitions of national art during the Biennale. The 30th pavilion, known as the “Padillon Centrale,” hosts the main exhibition.

The An-225 Mriya is the largest and most powerful transport aircraft in the world, created by the Kyiv Antonov Design Bureau. The plane, with a maximum haul weight of 640 tonnes, is the heaviest aircraft in the world. In November 2004, the International Aviation Federation entered the An-225 into the Guinness Book of Records for setting 240 records.

The operator of the An-225 Mriya is Ukraine’s Antonov Airlines, which is a structural unit of the state enterprise Antonov. For many years, the airline fleet has been actively involved in the international commercial air transportation market of non-standard and extra-heavy cargoes.

Something really odd on this one….

>>6334377

I believe anon is correct…or possibly Serbian/Slovenian…

http://open-group.org.ua/en/

Mriya, the world’s largest aircraft, will cast a shadow over one of the most prominent events in the world of contemporary art. As 285 tons of steel whiz above the viewers, we will separate them from the sun for a few seconds. There’s no knowing how many will ask, “What was it?” It's the flapping of butterfly wings that may have far-reaching implications.

Aside from the world’s largest aircraft and its symbolically charged name (Mriya means “dream” in Ukrainian), sunlight as such will also play a crucially important role. In antiquity, people believed that light emanated from their eyes, lighting up everything they saw. Had that been the case, our project would have been irrelevant, given that cutting the viewers off from the sun for a couple of seconds is its most important element, regardless of the presence or absence of clouds. We might mention Giorgio de Chirico and the movement of metaphysical painting he established in 1916. In Pittura metafisica, metaphors and dreams become a vehicle that allows thoughts to transcend the boundaries of conventional logic, with the effect of unreality further highlighted by the contrast between realistically depicted objects and the whimsical atmosphere surrounding them. We want to elicit a similar effect through different means.

The next question is, what fills the object casting the shadow? What are its contents, even if they do not affect the shape of its shadow? Importantly, the plane carries the list of all contemporary Ukrainian artists, regardless of their style, age, gender or ideological beliefs. This list of the living, almost a telephone book’s worth, might serve as a reminder that, in the 28th year of its independence, Ukraine still doesn't have a museum or a collection of contemporary art.

Could it be a sort of koan? That brings us back to this text's opening, which describes the title The Shadow of Dream* cast upon Giardini della Biennale as a freestanding poem. It could be that our idea is nothing short of the world’s most ambitious poetry illustration. We are yet to grasp the full complexity of our times; in all likelihood, it's no longer possible or justifiable to address the public with layered or hyper-elaborate messages. One of the most important resources of our times, the human attention span, is dwindling, which means that we have to speak briefly, maybe even in snippets, separating objects from their shadows.

The Mriya (Dream) aircraft carries information, namely, the list of artists. It can be interpreted as a list of men and women who “had a dream,” explicit or obscure, verbalized or even unconscious. These artists lingered outside the global context of contemporary art, on the cultural periphery of the so-called first world, for decades, due to personal, historical and pragmatic reasons. Some contributed willingly to their own marginalization, espousing the doctrine that remained dominant in the country for 80 years, either honestly or for market reasons. For many, the choice was ideological, and those artists might approach the Venice Biennale as yet another fair of bourgeois, capitalist art. At the same time, it’s hard to imagine a Ukrainian nonconformist artist of the 1970s-1990s who didn’t dream of taking part in one of the most high profile art events in the world.