My Take on Trump vs Biden in Ukraine

Viktor Shokin, source Kyiv Post

Mykola Zlochevsky, environment minister under Yanukovich and owner of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, was under investigation for corruption - money laundering and illicit enrichment. Hunter Biden, who joined the board of Bursima in April 2014, AFTER Yanukovich was driven out, was not under investigation. The Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine was investigating Zlochevsky. However, Victor Shokin, the Prosecutor General, was doing everything in his power to stall the investigation, as he did with every investigation of high-level corruption.

Prosecutors are THE most corrupt people in Ukraine, followed by judges. Prosecutors decide WHO gets investigated and charged, Judges decide WHO goes free. A few years back the Prosecutor for Dnipropetrovsk Oblast was murdered, presumably replaced by someone more amenable to some powerful interest. In 2014 the Russians made much of a known far-right thug, now dead, roughing up a Prosecutor in, I think, Rivna Oblast. What they didn't tell you was that he saved the guy from lynching because he had just released an accused murderer.

Anti-corruption activists had been after Shokin for months, prior to Joe Biden's involvement. Also, European governments and international funding agencies, including the IMF who have been the gun to the head of all Ukraine's reforms and also the American Ambassador to Ukraine. Biden's threat to withhold $1 billion dollar loan guarantee was likely the last straw for Poroshenko who fired Shokin and replaced him with equally corrupt Yuriy Lutsenko, who in 2016 declared the investigation into Zlochevsky dead.

Trump and Giuliani depended for their story about Joe Biden's alleged interference on Shokin and Lutsenko. Lutsenko was fighting anti-corruption NGOs and Serhiy Leshchenko, liberal deputy and journalist. Lutsenko told Giuliani that Leshchenko "exposed the illegal payments made by Mr. Yanukovych’s political party to Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, had done so at the instigation of the U.S. Embassy and financier George Soros, among others. He also claimed that the U.S. ambassador, Ms. Yovanovitch, had given him a list of people not to prosecute — a claim dismissed by the State Department as “an outright fabrication.”"

I am so glad Trump was not president when Yanukovich was in power as they are two of a kind and certainly Trump would have loved him and his methods. I remember well the furor around trying to get rid of Shokin and the frustration when he was replaced by Lutsenko, who is now finally gone also. Trump and Giuliani are supporting the enemies of Ukraine, the corrupt officials, the pro-Russian oligarchs and the Russians. Please stop them. I see impeachment is proceeding and I am glad of that.

https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/what-us-whistleblower-scandal-means-for-ukraine.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/in-ukraine-trumps-allies-are-corrupt-oligarchs-and-russian-stooges/2019/09/23/6a5a3eec-de14-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html