By Stephen Bryen, Asia Times, 8/23/23

If the Ukraine war ended tomorrow, the United States still would need to send hundreds of billions in aid to that country. The bill includes continuation of military assistance, budget support for the Ukrainian government and reconstruction assistance.

President Biden has just asked for another US$24 billion to support Ukraine, primarily for military equipment but also budget support ($7.3 billion). While Congress is increasingly skeptical about another huge chunk of money to fund an endless conflict, this is peanuts compared with what will be asked after the war ends.

The World Bank has done a revised estimate on reconstruction needs, based on data from the first year of the war (February 2022 to February 2023). The Bank says that Ukraine needs $411 billion for reconstruction over a ten-year period.

That estimate will need to be significantly increased to account for February to August 2023 and beyond. It would make sense to think that even if the war stopped tomorrow, reconstruction aid would come to $600 billion or more, or more than half a trillion dollars. 

For purposes of comparison, the war in Iraq featured a reconstruction program of $60 billion. The US also spent $90 billion over twelve years to support Afghanistan (although the war continued in that country.)

There is no doubt that most of the US assistance to Afghanistan was probably stolen or went over to the Taliban. On top of that, billions’ worth of US war-fighting equipment was left in place and is now used by the Taliban.

In the case of Iraq, most of the aid was wasted thanks to bad management, corruption and poor planning.

The US and its allies will need to cough up $60 billion annually to support Ukraine, and expect that a lot of it will be stolen. It will have to keep the funding up for 10 years.

Consider that Germany has committed to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes” at $5 billion annually. But the German government in power is likely to be replaced soon, and that pledge is about as worthless as the Weimar mark.

Likewise, the UK economy is very dodgy, and finding serious money in future will prove a real challenge. The bottom line is that most of the money will have to come from Uncle Sam. 

It may be that some Washington insiders are thinking that the best thing is to prolong the war as long as possible, because if the fighting continues the US just needs to provide military assistance and budget support for the government, but not reconstruction assistance.

In effect, that is the Biden administration policy. By continuing the war the Biden government thinks it can convince Congress to keep paying and they can keep Ukraine “alive” by forking over arms and money to pay salaries and for needed supplies.

But will Congress be willing to keep spending for an endless war? It is likely Congress will want to know where the money is going, how it is used, and how the US government accounts for its spending. 

Most Americans oppose more aid to Ukraine. We are entering an election period with the first Republican presidential debates coming soon. Ukraine is sure to be an issue and some candidates, like Robert Kennedy Jr, who identifies for the time being as a Democrat, already are speaking out against supporting the war.

This could mean Biden will have a huge problem trying to get a skittish Congress, including his fellow Democrats, to sign up for more spending on a losing proposition.

It has long been understood that Ukraine is a corrupt country. Ukrainian politicians, including Zelensky, have offshored some of their wealth (Zelensky has a villa in Tuscany on the seashore in Forte dei Marmi which he bought before he entered politics and now rents to Russian clients at 12,000 euros a month).

President Biden’s son Hunter is embroiled in an investigation of payments and other activities centered partly on Ukraine’s Burisma energy holding company and in part on transactions in China. A Republican-dominated committee in the House of Representatives has sought to tie the president to the matters under investigation.

When the “big” reconstruction money starts flowing, assuming that happens, political and military officials in Ukraine will enthusiastically help the United States line their pockets.

Ukraine’s corruption was highly visible this month as President Zelensky fired all the military recruiters in the country because they were selling recruitment passes to young men seeking to avoid the war. 

Ukraine will end up being the most costly operation ever carried out by the United States. The US Marshall Plan for European reconstruction after World War II cost the United States $13.3 billion. That amount, in 2023 dollars, would be $173 billion, roughly a third of what reconstruction would cost for Ukraine.

There will be a strong lobbying effort by some US companies that anticipate getting rich providing support to Ukraine (these in addition to the usual suspects in defense industries).

We have seen them before in the Iraq reconstruction exercise. This lobbying will provide bait to Democrats and Republicans who otherwise might walk away from the war. But will it be enough to go against the will of American voters?

Americans can rightly ask: What are we getting for these huge outlays that will seriously burden US taxpayers? The US policy on Ukraine is a disaster from many angles, but for sure one of them is the huge dollar cost in supporting this endless misadventure.

Seymour Hersh just dropped a new article at Substack. You can find it here, but it’s behind a paywall, so I will summarize the main points below.

The main assertion of the article is that a US intelligence source of Hersh’s has stated that Putin was behind Prigozhin’s death and the reason was that Prigozhin was potentially provoking NATO and that was too reckless and unacceptable for Moscow:

“Prigozhin was provoking NATO and he had to go,” the US intelligence official said. “The last thing Putin wanted to do was to give NATO further cause to shelve its growing doubts about the endless financing of [Ukraine President Volodymyr] Zelensky.” 

So, the official said, “Putin did it.” Prigozhin had become too dangerous.

The intelligence source also reveals that the plane that blew up with Prigozhin and some of his closet associates onboard was suddenly and inexplicably pulled in for service the day before the doomed flight.

It was then, the intelligence official said, that bombs with delayed fuses bombs were placed in the wheelbase. The bombs were set to explode after the wheels were retracted.

The explanation for how the plane was downed sounds plausible. However, the source does not provide any evidence that it was Putin who actually ordered or approved it. The source provides a potential motive but motive alone doesn’t prove anything. Prigozhin had made many enemies who also had motives. I’m not saying it’s impossible but I still harbor some skepticism that Putin would do such a thing right in the middle of the BRICS summit, taking attention away from the constructive strides Russia and the rest of the BRICS countries are making toward a multipolar world. Why put a black mark on your own best PR?

I welcome readers’ thoughts in the comments.

Some additional interesting nuggets from the Hersh article include the claim by Hersh’s source (presumably from the CIA) that the US/UK media reporting on the progress of the war has been terribly inaccurate and is far too credulous of what Kiev says:

“The goal of Russia’s first line of defense was not to stop the Ukrainian offense,” the official told me, “but to slow it down so if there was a Ukrainian advance, Russian commanders could bring in reserves to fortify the line. There is no evidence that Ukrainian forces have gotten past the first line. The American press is doing anything but honest reporting on the failure thus far of the offense.

“What happened to the use of cluster bombs by Ukraine? Weren’t they supposed to open the door? And Zelensky is now claiming Ukraine had hypersonic bombs. He’s been bullshitting us like this as he always does. Where are the engineers and scientists manufacturing them? In a bunker somewhere? Or in Kiev? He’s pretending—stalling as long as he can?

The source suggests that military intelligence provides similarly poor information that is being used by the White House but that more accurate intelligence exists but is somehow prevented from reaching decision makers in the executive branch:

“Here is the key issue,” the official told me. “This kind of reporting from the military intelligence community is going to the White House. There are other views,” he said, obviously referring to the Central Intelligence Agency, that do not reach the Oval Office. “What is going to happen? Will we be supporting Ukraine as long as it takes? It’s not like we are fighting the Führer in Germany or the Emperor of Japan. The other day former vice president [Mike] Pence said that if we don’t defend Zelensky in Ukraine, Russia will come after Poland next. Is that the White House’s policy?” 

The source also told Hersh that the new Defense Minister of Ukraine, Rustem Umyerov, is even more corrupt that the one who just left (Oleksiy Reznikov), but interestingly Umyerov was not on CIA director William Burns’ list of corrupt officials provided to Kiev during a visit in January.

The last interesting comment by the intelligence source was that Putin is focused on running a war that he sees as critical to his nation’s security and doesn’t care what the American public thinks of him.

Link here.

Here is Tucker Carlson’s complete interview with Hungarian PM Viktor Orban referenced in the above video:

Link here.

By Andrew Korybko, Substack, 9/3/23

In an ironic twist of fate, this oligarch went from pulling the Ukrainian leader’s strings to having his life ruined by the same man who he thought was his puppet.

Many observers were shocked when the SBU arrested Zelensky’s former patron, oligarch Igor Kolomoysky, on charges of fraud, corruption, and money laundering over the weekend. The Ukrainian leader then thanked the security services in his evening address “for their determination to bring every case stalled for decades to a just conclusion.” This development comes two and a half years after the US sanctioned Kolomoysky on related pretexts, thus suggesting that the latest move was endorsed by them.

His arrest is due to several converging factors that also explain why it happened at this particular time. First, the vicious blame game that broke out between the US and Ukraine last month over the failed counteroffensive threatens to derail their relations if it isn’t soon resolved. At the core of this dispute are US accusations that Ukraine is arrogantly ignoring the military-strategic advice that it’s been given. Accordingly, the US has an interest in removing those who it suspects of negatively influencing Zelensky.

It’s unclear exactly what sway Kolomoysky might have still exerted over Zelensky after the latter fell largely under US influence since the start of Russia’s special operation a year and a half ago, but it makes sense why Washington wouldn’t want to risk the chance that he could play a role in their escalating spat. This observation doesn’t explain why he was arrested only just now, however, thus leading to the second relevant factor regarding the urgent need to manage Ukrainian and US public opinion.

People in both countries are growing fatigued and frustrated with this conflict. The challenge this poses for Ukraine is that it reduces support for prolonging the proxy war, plus folks are now starting to remember some of his other unfulfilled promises like fighting corruption. As for the US, a lot of Americans no longer want to fund Ukraine, or they at least want accountability for how their money is being spent after fearing that figures in this infamously corrupt country are stealing their tax dollars.

It therefore made sense for Zelensky to finally stage a public spectacle by allowing the arrest of his corrupt patron. He killed two birds with one stone by satiating both publics at no cost to himself. In fact, the latest phase of his anti-corruption campaign actually works in his political interests, thereby segueing into the third factor pertaining to the newfound US pressure on him to hold presidential elections next spring as planned.

Zelensky will almost certainly run for re-election even though he hasn’t yet officially announced his candidacy. He’s still somewhat popular with his people, as are most leaders whenever there’s a conflict being fought on their territory (or the territory that they claim as their own in this case), but his failure to effectively fight corruption despite prior promises disappointed many. By letting the SBU arrest his former patron Kolomoysky, however, Zelensky hopes to regain some of his base’s lost trust.

These three factors – the US wanting to consolidate its influence over Zelensky as bilateral ties become more complicated; the need to satiate the Ukrainian and US publics’ anti-corruption demands; and the incumbent’s undeclared re-election campaign – account for Kolomoysky’s arrest at this particular time. Simply put, it serves both states’ interests. In an ironic twist of fate, this oligarch went from pulling the Ukrainian leader’s strings to having his life ruined by the same man who he thought was his puppet.

By Matt Taibbi, Racket News, 8/29/23

When you know you’re being censored, you can protest. But what to do about silent editorial punishment, dished without announcement, by tech platforms that appear to be learning fast how to avoid public outcry?

A year ago, this site had to throw a public fit to resolve a preposterous controversy involving videographer Matt Orfalea and YouTube. The issue centered around the above video, “‘Rigged’ Election Claims, Trump 2020 vs. Clinton 2016,” which despite total factual accuracy was cited under its “Elections Misinformation” policy. YouTube in July of last year demonetized Orf’s entire channel over his content, saying “we think it violates our violent criminal organizations policy.”

As you will see if you click now, the above video, as I argued to Google, could not possibly be violative of any “misinformation” guideline, as it was comprised entirely of “real, un-altered clips of public figures making public comments.” After both Orf and I tantrumed in public — there’s not much else to do in these situations — YouTube sent Matt the “Great News!” that “after manually reviewing your video, we’ve determined that it is suitable for all advertisers”:

We thought the matter was settled.

This week, Orf discovered the video had been re-classified as problematic by a new “human reviewer,” who declared it in violation for “harmful or dangerous acts” that “may endanger participants.” Potential problems, the reviewer determined, included “glorification, recruitment, or graphic portrayal of dangerous organizations,” by which I can only presume they mean former Bernie voters like Orf and myself whose political homelessness apparently constitutes a threat.

I’ve once again sent complaints up the Google/YouTube flagpole. Perhaps Racket readers are tired of digital censorship tales. If so, I understand, I do. I want to underscore that the chief reason now for sharing incidents like this is to show the rapid progression of tactics being used not just against this site, or Orf, but everyone.

In the last 6-8 months — hell, the last 2-3 months — the landscape for non-corporate media businesses has tightened dramatically. Independent media content is increasingly hard to find via platform searches, even when exact terminology, bylines, or dates are entered by users. Social media platforms that once provided effective marketing and distribution at little to no cost are now difficult to navigate even with the aid of paid boosting tools. In other words, even if your business does well enough to pay full retail rates for marketing, a widening lattice of algorithmic restriction across platforms is making distribution for non-corporate media a nightmare anyway.

It’s an unfortunate coincidence that this situation involving Orf arrives as Racket is preparing a story about new techniques being deployed in recent months to reclassify even non-violative true content as misinformation. Like this affair, that coming story touches on a phenomenon we saw repeatedly in the Twitter Files, but didn’t delve into in detail then: the use of deamplification and “visibility filtering” as PR-friendly alternatives to outright bans.

This episode with Orf represents a crack in the system, where the user isn’t formally notified of a demonetization or deamplification decision, but somehow learns of it anyway. How often is it happening when users don’t find out? Also, are these tools being used pre-emptively, for certain topics? There are so many things we need to learn still, about how access to information is being controlled.

Until then, will YouTube do the right thing and fix this particular idiocy? Even for your company, this shouldn’t be a hard call.

If the video above somehow meets your definition of “harmful or dangerous acts,” you’ve gone crazy, in addition to rendering both of those terms totally meaningless. If you believe otherwise, could you at least explain your thinking, so the public can evaluate it?

Sincerely, the editor, etc.