All tagged ukraine

In defense of Ukraine

In defense of Ukraine

Tatiana Prophet
Foreign Affairs

By Tatiana Prophet

In the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, Democrats have pointed to lethal defensive aid for Ukraine that was held up by the President as a clear example of abuse of power.

According to a Government Accountability Office decision released Jan. 16, 2020, President Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) violated the law when he ordered a pause in lethal aid to Ukraine that was authorized by the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2019.

“Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” the decision stated. “OMB withheld funds for a policy reason, which is not permitted under the Impoundment Control Act (ICA). The withholding was not a programmatic delay. Therefore, we conclude that OMB violated the ICA.”

What you need to know: An impartial impeachment guide

What you need to know: An impartial impeachment guide

Tatiana Prophet
Impeachment

By Tatiana Prophet
Editor-in-Chief

Think back if you can to the utter firestorm that exploded during the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York City, coming just a day after Adam Schiff dropped a huge bombshell in a letter to acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire. The letter accused Maguire of withholding a whistleblower complaint submitted August 12 to the Intelligence Community Inspector General, who had deemed it credible and then sent it on to Maguire on August 26.

The complaint, released by the whistleblower’s lawyers at Compass Rose Law Firm

The nation was still reeling from three mass shootings in a row and the violent death of Jeffrey Epstein in a Manhattan federal prison cell, either at the hands of himself or someone else.

And the United Nations General Assembly annual meeting was about to begin.

Burisma founder: From 'wanted man' to 'in-demand'

Burisma founder: From 'wanted man' to 'in-demand'

Tatiana Prophet
Foreign Affairs

Part IV: From ‘wanted man’ to ‘in demand’
How Burisma’s founder turned scrutiny into prestige

“I said I’m going to be leaving here in six hours. If the prosecutor’s not fired, you’re not getting a billion dollars. Well, son of a bitch. Got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid. At the time.” — Joe Biden, January 2018.

By Tatiana Prophet

According to James Risen at The Intercept and Lucian Kim at National Public Radio, when Joe Biden called for a prosecutor to be fired in 2016, that prosecutor was not investigating Biden’s son Hunter; according to everyone in the Western world, Viktor Shokin was corrupt himself and had no interest in exposing corruption. Why, then, did Shokin’s replacement close the books on the investigation into Hunter’s employer, Burisma Holdings?

Wrote Risen: “The then-vice president issued his demands for greater anti-corruption measures by the Ukrainian government despite the possibility that those demands would actually increase – not lessen — the chances that Hunter Biden and Burisma would face legal trouble in Ukraine.”

Follow the money ... if you can

Follow the money ... if you can

Tatiana Prophet
Foreign Affairs

Part II: Billions in, billions out

Ukraine is still the second poorest country in Europe in wealth per capita, so where does U.S. aid go?

By Tatiana Prophet

From a large American think tank to scads of non-governmental organizations to the American embassy in Kyiv, the “concern trolls” have been working overtime in Ukraine. Time and again, when you look at the last two decades, these always well-meaning outsiders have been laying out action plans and guiding principles for Ukrainians to end corruption and enact “market reforms” – and yet, money is still being laundered, oligarchs have continued living abroad to avoid prosecution, and almost half of Ukrainian citizens admitted in 2017 to giving petty bribes to doctors and universities, often for convenience.

Ukraine is good for the West; but is the West good for Ukraine?

Ukraine is good for the West; but is the West good for Ukraine?

Tatiana Prophet
Foreign Affairs

A Bird’s Eye View: Ukraine
In-Depth Series by Back to Facts

Part I: Energy Crossroads, Gas Storage Titan

By Tatiana Prophet

Ukraine is a vital crossroads for natural gas, from Asia and Russia to Europe. Ukraine has always been a crossroads, with access to the Mediterranean via the Bosphorus Strait at Istanbul. It has one of the largest gas transit networks in the world. It also has tremendous storage capacity, as large as all of Europe and more available due to a relatively small domestic demand. The gas networks are used heavily in the winter.

Further, international storage fee contracts are traded in U.S. dollars, making Ukraine almost as important as a Middle Eastern country for its role in the energy sector. And gas storage futures are a big business on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Key to Trump-Ukraine call: Untangling the alliances

Key to Trump-Ukraine call: Untangling the alliances

Tatiana Prophet
Foreign Affairs

By Tatiana Prophet
editor@back2facts.com
Updated 9/26/2019 6:27 pm
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that Hunter Biden joined the Burisma board in April 2016. It was actually April 2014. Back to Facts regrets the error.

The phone call with new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is meaningless – until you sort through what’s actually going on in Ukraine.

Ukraine has had its ample share of political violence, scandal and even poisoning (see the famous poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko during the Orange Revolution of 2004). With an ideal climate for farming, Ukraine was long the breadbasket of Europe. As such it has been periodically overshadowed and menaced by Imperial Russia and Soviet Russia. To read articles out of context, it appears the political retributions have no end in this country. No wonder they elected an outsider recently, TV personality Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Here is a brief summary of the situation with Joe Biden, best told by the former vice president himself. On January 23, 2018, Biden appeared at an event held by the Council on Foreign Relations.