The big purge in Kiev continues.
After the purge of Defense Minister Oleksii Rezhnikov, two Deputy Defense Ministers Ivan Rusnak and Oleh Hayduk will now be purged. Earlier, another Defense Deputy Vyacheslav Shapovalov was fired on 24 January 2023 and arrested on 2 February 2023. And a “helicopter crash” on 18 January 2023 removed Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky, Deputy Interior Minister Yevhen Yenin, State Secretary Yurii Lubkovych and 6 others in the helicopter including the pilot. The top of Ukraine’s coercive Ministeries – the Military and Police – is taken out.
Additional top-Ukrainians were purged in January 2023
- Deputy Prosecutor General Oleskiy Symonenko
- Deputy Minister for Development of Communities and Territories Ivan Lukerya
- Deputy Minister for Development of Communities and Territories Vyacheslav Negoda
- Deputy Minister for Social Policy Vitaliy Muzychenko
- The 5 governors of the key regions Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Sumy, and Kherson
See this.
We cannot count the total number of key Ukrainians who are purged lately. They are so many and the reports that surface are only intermittent. Including Zelensky’s former Liar-in-Chief Aleksii Arestovych, who was fired for accidentally once telling the truth (!), we can say that the purged Ukrainian top-officials number more than 17 – but the real number when including lower ranks and lower profiled centers of power is probably several times higher.
As Kiev loses everywhere on the front, the US and its government media like Washington Post continue to spin the unbelievable narrative that the Kiev purge is just about “corruption”. That Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov continues as minister, only in a ministry without coercive powers, is proof that Reznikov did no misdemeanor. The whole point was to replace the mild-mannered Reznikov who was close to Zelensky with the Himmler-like Bodanov as Defense Minister, to keep the Ukrainian killing machine going as Ukraine breaks down. The funny thing about Oleksii Reznikov, that the new ministerial position given to Reznikov will be as Minister of Strategic Industries – yes, little coercive power, but indeed with exorbitant opportunities for Reznikov to enrich himself and others through corruption. Instead of corrupting with millions, Reznikov can now corrupt with billions.
The US resistance to “corruption” in Ukraine is not believable. Nowhere in history has the US ever before had an urge to interfere in the corruption of its client states as long as they obeyed US orders. On the contrary, corruption makes it easier for the US to control its clients with money and threats of revealing. And President Biden and his son Hunter Biden have personally profited enormously from Ukraine’s corruption. The US Congress had to investigate Biden and found, that due to the unfathomable corruption in Ukraine’s Burisma company, “the presence of Hunter Biden on the Burisma board was very awkward for all U.S. officials pushing an anticorruption agenda in Ukraine.” Yes indeed. The US has only for show “pushed against corruption” in Ukraine for more than 8 years, so why do purges just happen now?
For those who can think, it is clear that “corruption” as explanation for the Stalinist purges and show-allegations in Ukraine does not hang together. Not because corruption is not endemic in Ukraine, but rather because it was always so, and not just recently. What is equally clear to people who can think is, that Ukraine in spite of US lies is losing the war, and that this has severe personal consequences for top-people in a more and more paranoic environment in Kiev and the ever more desperate US push to keep Ukrainians fighting – and dying.
Being a US puppet doesn’t always end well.
Just like Zelensky, Georgia’s ex-President Saakashvili was also hailed by Joe Biden (yes) and US media as a hero and “crusader” against corruption. As such, Saakashvili was showered by the US as a “fighting corruption” when he quickly fired the whole police force in a “corruption drive”. Saakashvili’s Georgian purge of the police was also just a ploy to strengthen US power in Georgia. When the Georgians wanted to get rid of Saakashvili, Joe Biden moved his retainer Saakashvili to Ukraine as governor of Odessa. When even the Ukrainians no longer wanted to see the back of Saakashvili, the criminal Saakashvili was sheltered by now-President Joe Biden in the USA but is today jailed in Georgia for abuse of power and … corruption. The US is now trying to get Saakashvili out of Georgia to Poland under the pretext of “bad health”.
President Zelensky, just like the other purged Ukrainians, has also demonstrably stashed a fortune in tax havens – money which nobody knows how Zelensky even as an “actor” has acquired.
Zelensky can fare worse than his friend Saakashvili once the US does not need Zelensky any more…
Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.