Top Trump allies hold secret talks with Zelenskyy’s Ukrainian opponents

Poroshenko: ‘Donbas children will sit in cellars, ours’ will go to school’

Top Trump allies hold secret talks with Zelenskyy’s Ukrainian opponents

The senior Trump allies held talks with Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, a remorselessly ambitious former prime minister, and senior members of the party of Petro Poroshenko, Zelenskyy’s immediate predecessor as president, according to three Ukrainian parliamentarians and a U.S. Republican foreign policy expert.

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Rand Paul says US spent $5 mln on influencers in Ukraine

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Rand Paul says US spent $5 mln on influencers in Ukraine

Related:

[12-23-2024]: Rand Paul ‘Festivus’ Grievances: US Millions For Ukraine TikTokers

More “Festivus” airing of the grievances: “But the absurdity doesn’t end there. The State Department also splurged $15,220 on an ‘influencers event’ and another $22,231 on a ‘USAID Social Media Influencers Campaign.”

Zelensky’s wear and tear

Zelensky’s wear and tear (original)

For more than two and a half years, war has been the raison d’être of the Ukrainian state. The budget presented by Kyiv this week allocates more than 50% of the budget to the defence sector – to which must be added the cost of veterans – something that has been repeated since 2022. Maintaining the front, avoiding its collapse and ensuring that there is still enough support to continue fighting until the objectives are achieved is the priority of the government team, which has set aside practically all other obligations of the state, which today depends entirely on foreign subsidies that make it possible to pay salaries and pensions. One of the aspects that has completely disappeared under the cover of the unity demanded by the war is precisely domestic politics. The Russian invasion gave Zelensky’s team the opportunity to create for the president the image of a war leader, the representation of the nation, a savior capable of achieving what he sets out to do, the only person capable of rescuing the country from certain ruin.

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Ukraine: Dysfunctional Politics

Dysfunction Sidelines Ukraine’s Parliament as Governing Force,” is the title of an article published this week by The New York Times in one of the few political critiques that has appeared in the Western press recently. It took two years after the Russian invasion for the grace period of absence of political comments on the Ukrainian authorities to be broken, although always partially and only temporarily. It was the news that included Vitali Klitschko’s words against what he perceived as authoritarian drift that opened the door. Like the current information, that news also lacked the contextualization that politics requires, and it was left unmentioned that the criticism of the mayor of Kiev and the measures by which the protesters were part of a confrontation that went back almost to the beginnings of the presidency of Zelensky. The origin of the rivalry lies in the struggle for power and control of the resources of the State between the two protagonists. What is more, the attempt to Zelensky snatch administratively, the mayor of Kiev Klitschko, a man with powerful connections and political contacts, especially in Germany, is one of the examples that show that the authoritarian drift of Volodymyr Zelensky is not justified in the wartime situation today, but that precedes it in several years to the military intervention of Russia.

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‘Why are we tempting nuclear annihilation?’ — Transcript of Max Blumenthal’s address UN Security Council

The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal addressed the UN Security Council on the role of US military aid to Ukraine in escalating the conflict with Russia and the real motives behind Washington’s support for Kiev’s proxy war.

‘Why are we tempting nuclear annihilation?’ Watch Max Blumenthal address UN Security Council

Previously:

All aboard the gravy train: an independent audit of US funding for Ukraine