Seymour Hersh: Zelensky embezzled $400 million from US taxpayer money
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According to US journalist Seymour Hersh, Ukraine's president embezzled $400 million from US taxpayers to fund the war.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy holds a speech during his visit to Warsaw, Poland, April 5, 2023 (AP)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky embezzled hundreds of millions of dollars from the United States that Washington had allocated to purchase fuel, famed US investigative journalist and Pulitzer award winner Seymour Hersh said on Sunday in his latest report.
Hersh accused the Ukrainian government of using US taxpayer money to purchase Russian diesel from Moscow to bolster its military, adding that Ukrainian officials were "competing" to set up front companies that aimed to get contracts from international private arms dealers.
"One estimate by analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) put the embezzled funds at $400 million last year, at least; another expert compared the level of corruption in Kiev as approaching that of the Afghan war, 'although there will be no professional audit reports emerging from Ukraine'," Hersh's report read.
Hersh argued that he had knowledge that numerous Ukrainian government agencies were competing to establish front businesses to export guns and ammunition to arms dealers, noting that the importers included ones in Poland, the Czech Republic, and the Israeli occupation.
Read next: Zelensky's fall to grace in the West
Instead of purchasing fuel through Pakistan, Ukraine, at the direction of its president, has been buying fuel from Russia, whom Kiev accuses of invading Ukrainian soil, Hersh revealed, noting that the Ukrainians were embezzling behemoth amounts of money allocated by the United States to diesel purchases.
Gains upon gains
The discrepancy comes when one compares the price of Russian diesel to that of other international parties such as the United States, as Russian energy is cheaper, therefore, the Ukrainians are pocketing the difference, earning them hundreds of millions of dollars, the US journalist claimed.
This comes after earlier reports came out about how oil products originating in Russia made their way to Ukraine through Bulgaria and Latvia.
Hersh underlined that an intelligence source highlighted the meeting that took place between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and CIA Director William Burns in Kiev, who the source said delivered a "striking message" to the Ukrainian leader.
"The senior generals and government officials in Kiev were angry at what they saw as Zelensky’s greed, so Burns told the Ukrainian president, because he was taking a larger share of the skim money than was going to the generals," he revealed.
"Burns also presented Zelensky with a list of thirty-five generals and senior officials whose corruption was known to the CIA and others in the American government," Hersh added.
He also stressed that in the wake of numerous corruption scandals surrounding the Kiev government coming to light, Zelensky on January 24 "announced ‘personnel decisions’ across different government ministries and within Ukrainian law enforcement."
The report recalled how Zelensky announced that state officials would be banned from traveling internationally for purposes unrelated to official work in the wake of a report revealing that a former top prosecutor vacationed in Spain despite there being a martial law in action banning Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving Ukraine without permission from the government.
Shady background
Hersh previously uncovered in February that the US was behind the sabotage that affected Russia's Nord Stream natural gas pipelines, with numerous reports coming out from the famed journalist on Ukrainian-US ties since.
Hersh also said in mid-March that the United States was looking at the possibility of delving into the Ukraine war if Kiev starts showing cracks in its defenses and signs of defeat against Russia.
Significantly, Hersh explained that the US administration was unhappy with the fact that its proxy war against Moscow was not "going well".
Read next: Hersh says will likely reveal 'mechanism' of Nord Stream sabotage act
