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In the United States, before the elections, the “Ukrainian card” was drawn again: the Senate published a report on Biden’s affairs in Ukraine
Six weeks before the US elections, the map of Ukraine reappeared.
The United States Senate has released a devastating report on the work in Ukraine of the son of former Vice President Biden, Trump’s rival.
We are talking about the Biden family corruption story in Ukraine, about which Strana has already written many times: how Biden’s son got a job with a big salary at the Ukrainian company Burisma, after which the cases were closed penalties against its owner Zlochevsky.
The report mentions, in particular, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the people’s deputy Andriy Derkach, who published a series of recordings of conversations between Poroshenko and Biden, the former attorney general Viktor Shokin and Andriy Telizhenko, a former employee of the Ukrainian embassy in the United States. .
Biden’s campaign team has denied any allegations, calling the report an attempt by Trump allies to “harm a political opponent and interfere in the electoral process.”
Among Democrats, the report’s authors, Republican Senators Ron Johnson and Chuck Greslia, were accused of using information they received from Derkach, who they said was “linked to Russian intelligence.” Republicans reject this.
In theory, the materials in the 87-page report could become the basis of the criminal case against Biden, which the US president is seeking.
But given that there is absolutely nothing left before the election, and they are preparing to appoint a new ambassador to Ukraine, Keith Dayton, who was pressured by the State Department, which is run by Trump’s opponents, it is unlikely that investigate Biden’s corruption in Ukraine.
However, from an informational point of view, Ukrainegate, according to experts, can play its role in the elections, reducing Biden’s chances of winning. Furthermore, according to Strana, these are not the latest revelations from the former US vice president.
“The countries” discovered what they unearthed in the Senate against the Biden family and what this means for Ukraine.
“Kent warned Obama on Biden’s Ukraine affairs”
The senators’ main takeaway: Biden’s son’s job on the board of the Burisma gas company, where he received at least $ 50,000 a month, created a conflict of interest at a time when Joe Biden was vice president and oversaw the Ukrainian theme in administration.
“The committee heads in the course of their investigation found that the Obama administration knew that Hunter Biden’s serving on the Burisma board was problematic and impeded the effective implementation of the strategy in Ukraine,” the report says.
At the same time, the report noted that US officials during the Obama era warned the White House about the wrongful participation of the vice president’s son on the board of a Ukrainian company. But they were ignored.
Specifically, George Kent, the State Department apparatchik and Trump’s opponent, who, according to Derkach, plays an important role in “protecting” the democratic lobby in Ukraine, warned of this.
Kent is a former US Deputy Ambassador to Kiev and one of the “spiritual fathers” of the anti-corruption bodies (Strana wrote about him in detail in 2017). Kent is currently the Deputy Under Secretary of State for Eurasian Affairs.
In early 2015, Kent expressed to officials in Vice President Biden’s office his concerns about conflicts of interest over Hunter Biden’s role on the Burisma board. Kent’s concerns were disregarded and in September 2016 he reiterated this in an email to his colleagues: “Hunter Biden’s presence on the Burisma board makes it difficult for US officials who are doing all they can to fight corruption in Ukraine.” .
The report’s authors wonder why Burisma provided Hunter with a well-paying job despite having little experience in the energy sector and having had drug use problems in the past.
“Trump, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and other allies have argued that Biden abused his position as vice president to pressure Ukraine to fire Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin to protect his son from a Burisma investigation. Democrats deny this.” – writes Washington Examiner with reference to the report.
“It is clear from the documents that State Department officials, in particular Kent himself, regularly noted that Hunter Biden’s connection to Burisma could affect the implementation of US policy,” the report said.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry “knew about Hunter Biden’s role on Burisma’s board of directors,” but he lied and said he did not know when asked about it in December 2019 (during Trump’s impeachment process).
But Kerry’s stepson, who was also Hunter Biden’s business partner, on May 13, 2014, the day after Hunter Biden joined Burisma’s board of directors, wrote an email to Kerry’s chief of staff to distance himself. of the decision.
Not only Burisma, but also the wife of the former mayor of Moscow
Some more facts, which are mentioned in the report:
– Former Undersecretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland said that confronting the oligarchs would be an anti-corruption signal for Ukraine. Kent told the committees that Zlochevsky was “a hateful oligarch.” However, in December 2015, instead of pursuing America’s goals of confronting the oligarchs, Vice President Biden’s staff advised him to refrain from commenting on Zlochevsky and advised him to say, “I will not name names or blame people. “
– Hunter Biden was on Burisma’s board of directors (allegedly advising on corporate governance matters) when Zlochevsky allegedly gave a $ 7 million bribe to officials working under the direction of Ukraine’s attorney general, Vitaly Yarema, to “close the case against Zlochevsky “. Kent confirmed that the bribery took place in December 2014 (seven months after Hunter joined Burisma’s board of directors), and upon learning of this, he reported it to the FBI.
– Overall, as the report’s authors calculated, Biden’s son received more than $ 4 million from Burisma for serving on the board of directors, plus – “millions of dollars from foreign nationals with a questionable past.”
Notably, Biden’s son, according to the report’s authors, received a $ 3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, the wife of former Moscow mayor Luzhkov (while Democrats accused Trump of “Russian connections “, but they couldn’t prove it).
The report also claims that Hunter Biden ordered Russian-speaking prostitutes, literally “paying women who were citizens of Russia or other Eastern European countries and who appear to have been associated with prostitution in Eastern Europe or human trafficking.”
Trace of a Ukrainian diplomat
The report also mentions former diplomat Andrei Telizhenko, who, according to the report, met at least 10 times with representatives of the presidential administration, including Elizabeth Zentos, a member of Obama’s National Security Council.
And lobbying firm Blue Star Strategies, which the report’s authors say is owned by a Democrat, had a contract with Telizhenko from 2016 to 2017, and the firm also used his services in the summer of 2019.
Burisma hired Blue Star Strategies as a liaison with the State Department.
The report also describes other extensive contacts between Telizhenko and Obama administration officials.
It is characteristic that Telizhenko later testified about the interference of the former Ukrainian government in the 2016 US elections on the side of Clinton.
In addition, he participated in Giuliani’s film on Ukrainian-American corruption, filmed last December.
Telizhenko repeated on camera his testimonies about Ukraine’s interference in the US elections, namely how the then government and the US embassy supported Hillary Clinton, an opponent of Trump.
He admitted that while working at the Ukrainian embassy in Washington in 2016, he was instructed to gather information on the former head of Trump’s campaign headquarters, Paul Manafort, and find dirt on him (which the Ukrainian embassy denies).
According to Telizhenko, the assistant to the then Ukraine ambassador to the United States, Oksana Shulyar, who, she suggests, had personal relationships with people from the Democratic headquarters, introduced her to Alexandra Chalupa from the Democratic Party and instructed her to collect and transmit information about Manafort.
The goal was not only to discredit Trump, but also to remove him from the electoral race.
“They told me this in plain text. I refused to participate in this, after which I did not contact Chalupa,” Telizhenko said.
Furthermore, Telizhenko accused Poroshenko of having received a whopping $ 200 million for closing the case against Burisma.
According to the former diplomat, Poroshenko received money from various sources, owned by his closest associate, Igor Kononenko.
“The final amount Mr. Poroshenko received was $ 200 million for Burisma, for closing the case,” Telizhenko said.
The same former diplomat told Strana that for now he would refrain from commenting on the US Senate report.
“It will be even more interesting in a couple of weeks.”
American experts in an interview with Strana suggested that the report is another attempt by Trump supporters on the eve of the elections in an attempt to play the “Ukrainian card” against the former vice president as the main factor in discrediting him.
However, the Biden case is difficult to unfold without the help of Ukraine, and Trump realizes that the Ukrainian authorities will not do this and there is no time. Therefore, they decided to use what they have and issued a report that reveals the ins and outs of Biden and his son’s work in Ukraine. . In the next six weeks, Ukraine will be remembered more than once, “said Jerry Bishop, an expert on Eastern Europe at a Washington-based think tank.
Sources in US political circles told Strana that further revelations of Biden’s activities related to Ukraine and beyond can be expected in the near future.
“It will be even more interesting in a couple of weeks,” says the source.
