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Ukraine lacks sovereignty – Kremlin

RT | February 16, 2025

Russia will need to take Ukraine’s lack of independence into account in any future negotiations, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

Given that in the past, Kiev backtracked on its promises at the behest of other countries, Moscow will need to consider this lack of autonomy in any upcoming talks, Peskov said in an interview published by Russia 1 TV journalist Pavel Zarubin on Sunday.

“That country cannot really answer for its words,” the spokesman said. “Each time it is necessary to make a certain adjustment when negotiating with them, for their deficit of sovereignty and the deficit of trust in them. Which will not go anywhere,” Peskov added.

The Kremlin spokesman cited the ill-fated 2014-2015 Minsk Agreements and the failed negotiations Moscow and Kiev held in Istanbul in 2022, soon after the full-blown escalation of the Ukraine conflict.

The Minsk ceasefire, which was ostensibly intended to freeze the conflict between Kiev and the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, was in fact only “an attempt to give Ukraine time” to build strength, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted to Die Zeit in 2022.

“Ukraine would have been whole,” if the Minsk agreements had been followed, “and there would have been no civil war, and Russian people in the Donbass would have had no desire to separate from Ukraine,” Peskov claimed.

Similarly, Moscow and Kiev had already agreed on several points during the initial peace talks in Istanbul in 2022, the spokesman added.

“The [papers] were ready, they were ready to be signed. Then another side said, no, you can’t. And they were thrown out,” he said.

According to Ukrainian MP David Arakhamia, who was Kiev’s chief negotiator at the talks, then UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson came in person to demand that nothing be signed and that Ukraine continue fighting.

Moscow has ruled out any temporary solution akin to the Minsk agreements, insisting on a permanent, legally binding solution that addresses the core causes of the conflict. Any such settlement would need to be based on the points previously agreed upon in Istanbul, adjusted for the territorial “realities on the ground,” Russia has stated.

February 16, 2025 Posted by | Corruption | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Eruption In “BleachBit,” “Wipe Hard Drive,” “Offshore Bank” Searches In DC Suggest Deep State Panic Mode

By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | February 16, 2025

Internet search trends in the Washington, DC, metro area have been nothing short of stunning in recent weeks, reflecting what appears to be growing panic within the federal bureaucracy as President Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) root out corruption in non-governmental organizations (NGO) and federal agencies.

Earlier this week, internet search trends for “Criminal Defense Lawyer” and “RICO Laws” went viral on X, fueling speculation that Washington’s political elites were in panic mode. The searches coincided with DOGE’s efforts to neuter USAID’s funding of NGOs that propped up a shadow government, as well as begin cutting tens of thousands of workers from various federal agencies.

Now, more suspicious search trends have erupted among DC residents as DOGE efforts went into beast mode at the end of the week.

“Washington DC searches soar for “Swiss bank” (yellow), “offshore bank” (green), “wire money” (red) and “IBAN” (blue),” WikiLeaks wrote on X late Thursday.

Search terms “Wipe” (blue) and “Erase” (red) also moved higher in recent weeks. Wipe hard drives?

Well, yes, the search term “wipe hard drive” across the DC metro has gone absolutely parabolic.

And “BleachBit” too! 

Searches for “lawyers” have jumped.

“Statute of limitations” also soared.

Why on Earth would some DC residents panic-search keywords that suggest they are trying to cover up a crime?

Well, just take a look at this!

The accountability sheriff: Trump & DOGE are in town – and the Deep State criminals who have been misappropriating taxpayer funds for years are in panic mode.

Hence this…

Now DOGE’s “Big Balls” member, Edward Coristine, now listed as a “senior adviser” at the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Technology, should focus efforts on those outbound ACH transfers >$1 million in the past few months…

February 16, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , | 1 Comment

Trump sends defense stocks crashing

RT | February 15, 2025

US defense stocks took a sharp dive this week after President Donald Trump announced that he could slash military spending in half. The announcement came amid a wider cost-saving push by his administration.

Companies which saw share prices fall this week include aerospace manufacturers Lockheed Martin (-4.86%) and Northrop Grumman (-6.58%) as well as General Dynamics (-5.30%), according to Friday’s trading data.

Speaking at a White House press conference on Thursday, Trump said he planned to discuss a potential reduction in defense budgets with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

“At some point, when things settle down, I’m going to meet with China and I’m going to meet with Russia… and I’m going to say there’s no reason for us to be spending almost $1 trillion on the military… and I want to say let’s cut our military budget in half,” Trump said.

Defense firms have enjoyed increased demand for weapons and military equipment since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Lockheed Martin, the primary producer of the F-16 fighter jets and Patriot missile systems used in Ukraine, posted a 21% year-on-year increase in revenues in 2023.

The new US administration has so far sent mixed messages on military spending. Trump has tasked Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency with cutting federal costs, including at the Pentagon. The president has also pushed for a quick resolution of the Ukraine conflict, announcing imminent talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

The current $1 trillion in annual US military spending accounts for about 3.4% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said during his confirmation hearings at the US Senate in January that he wouldn’t want to spend less than 3% of GDP on defense.

Russia has criticized the US arms sector for fueling global instability. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed in September that soaring profits prompt defense firms to provoke new armed conflicts.

Meanwhile, claims have resurfaced in recent months about NATO weapons and ammunition being put on sale on the dark web. Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson alleged earlier this month that the Ukrainian military was selling American weapons systems on the black market, including to drug cartels.

In January 2024, a US Department of Defense Office of Inspector General report revealed that the Pentagon was unable to fully account for over $1 billion worth of military aid to Kiev. In 2023, CNN reported that criminals and arms traffickers in Ukraine had stolen some Western-provided weapons and equipment intended for troops.

February 15, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Economics, Militarism | | Leave a comment

The Cost of Freedom: Confronting Military-Industrial Profiteering and Restoring Fiscal Integrity to Preserve Our Republic

By Dennis J. Kucinich | The Kucinich Report | February 14, 2025

Our government is drowning in multi-trillion-dollar financial corruption and debt while a fear-peddling national security state has reached deeply into the personal lives of each and every American, justifying its existence through endless wars cooked up by a deep state which has become the most corrupt marching band and chowder society in American history.

That deep state of permanent governance, entrenched media, think tanks, NGOs, and multi-billion-dollar government contractors, notwithstanding elections, has demanded US taxpayers pay additional TRILLIONS for wars, for subsidizing conflicts in other countries, for secret and not-so-secret arms deals to “rebels” for regime change, subverting governments through the pretext of foreign aid.

The government that we have succeeded most in subverting is our own.

There is an undeniable link between fiscal integrity and the preservation of our freedoms as Americans. When government becomes corrupt, it erodes not only our personal liberties and financial security, but also fosters a culture of lawlessness in both the public and private sectors. In order to restore our nation’s values, all three branches of government must demonstrate rigorous oversight, discipline, and integrity. Our nation requires an honest media. We must remain vigilant in holding government officials accountable. Government is too important to our lives to be left up to only those who govern.

The constitutional crisis in the form of massive federal government financial corruption looms like a giant iceberg about to sink the Ship of State. Unless its course is corrected, and soon, our nation will perish in a sea of deficits as private interests swim shark-like to feast on corpus America.

The corruption has been institutionalized in the federal budget. It has been normalized as standard operating procedure. The waste of taxpayers’ money is ubiquitous — trillions for wars, trillions in waste, fraud, and abuse. Trillions have been lost in an accounting jumble. This has been our government’s system of checks and balances: The Administration writes the checks, and Congress doesn’t know what the balance is. Is it possible that change is coming?

Congress, which by the Constitution must pass a budget, places spending bills from all federal departments into an “omnibus bill.” “Omnibus” is Latin for “budget-busting.” Most members do not know what is in the $7.3 Trillion spending bill, and those who do aren’t talking.

Welcome to America’s version of Dante’s Inferno, where in the ninth and lowest concentric circle of Hell, Cocytus, those who betrayed their countries are cast. Here is the final unresting place for those who spun the damnable lies which took us into a $3 trillion war against Iraq, which resulted in an unforgivable hemorrhage of American treasure and blood, that destroyed Iraq, killing one million Iraqi men, women and children.

The Iraq War, which began under the Bush administration, turned into a budget bacchanal of bribery, bilking, blight, and betrayal. Vice President Dick Cheney, who had been CEO of Halliburton, a major defense contractor, stood to indirectly benefit from government contracts awarded to his former company during the war.

Halliburton was awarded lucrative no-bid contracts to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure and provide logistical support to the U.S. military, bringing in billions of dollars. Cheney’s ties to Halliburton raised questions about potential conflicts of interest. Cheney’s former company was found to have overcharged the government and failed to deliver on its contracts in Iraq.

As a member of the House of Representatives (1997-2013), on the floor of the House, I consistently called out corruption, and also within the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Through two Presidential campaigns (2004 and 2008), I worked to end perpetual war, the waste of money and lives which war creates, and to refocus our resources to America’s needs at home.

Over the years, I called for an end to the systemic waste, fraud and abuse plaguing war spending, including the trillions of dollars spent on the Iraq War and other military conflicts. I introduced multiple pieces of legislation, including measures to hold defense contractors accountable, strengthen oversight mechanisms, and enforce stricter regulations to prevent corruption in federal contracts. It is one thing to criticize a system. It is another thing to relentlessly work to change it.

A Few Examples of My Efforts in Congress:

1. 2003-2007: Led efforts in the Oversight and Government Reform Committee to scrutinize defense spending, especially contracts awarded to companies like Halliburton, to ensure taxpayer dollars were not being wasted or siphoned off into private hands. During this period, I made multiple floor speeches highlighting the lack of accountability in the U.S. military’s procurement processes and demanded comprehensive audits.

2. 2007: Introduced H.R. 2042, the “Contractor Accountability Act of 2007,” requiring the Department of Defense to report on waste and fraud in military contracts, particularly those related to the Iraq War. This was a direct response to massive issues with no-bid contracts awarded to companies with ties to high-ranking government officials, such as Halliburton.

3. 2009-2012: Urged Congress to conduct investigations into the billions of dollars spent on “reconstruction” projects in Iraq that failed to materialize or were poorly managed. I consistently pushed for more robust transparency and oversight measures, speaking out against the disastrous consequences of unchecked spending in conflict zones.

4. 2011-2012: As a ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, I called for audits on military contractors and their role in fueling waste and corruption. One of the biggest examples I highlighted was the $61 million overcharge by Halliburton for transporting oil into Iraq.

My Call for Expanded Oversight: USAID and Other Agencies

In addition to the scrutiny of military contracts, I repeatedly called for comprehensive oversight of U.S. foreign aid and development programs. USAID has long been a channel through which billions of taxpayer dollars have been funneled abroad, often with little accountability or transparency. For years, I pushed for the auditing and review of USAID’s operations, specifically targeting the lack of measurable results in the countries it sought to “help.”

One of the most glaring examples came in the early 2000s, when billions in USAID funds were allocated to countries like Afghanistan and Iraq for reconstruction and development. There was little oversight into how those funds were being used, leading to ineffective and sometimes outright fraudulent projects.

I demanded oversight into USAID’s practice of funneling funds to for-profit companies, without competitive bidding and called for legislation enforcing stricter accountability measures.

The Pushback:

My efforts to root out waste, fraud, and corruption in military spending were often met with harsh criticism from both the mainstream media and political opponents, who characterized my calls for accountability as naive, unrealistic and damaging to national security.

The Wall Street Journal, in an editorial, called my opposition to military interventions misguided, suggesting that my views were out of touch with the political mainstream. Politico went as far as to label my approach idealistic and impractical.

On the political front, many of my Republican colleagues dismissed my positions as unpatriotic, arguing that scrutinizing defense spending would weaken the country’s ability to defend itself. But the problem wasn’t just with Republicans.

Democratic leadership, despite campaigning on promises to end wars, repeatedly voted to fund them once in office. Key figures like Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton supported the Iraq War authorization in 2002, and President Obama, despite vows to withdraw, continued the Iraq War and expanded military actions into Syria and Libya.

This hypocrisy—condemning endless wars while funding and escalating wars—allowed the military-industrial complex to thrive, betraying both the promises of peace and the trust of the American people.

The First Trump Administration

Unlike his Democratic predecessors, President Trump did not initiate new military conflicts during his first term. While the U.S. remained engaged in existing wars, particularly in Syria and Afghanistan, Trump made efforts to reduce troop deployments and avoid escalating military action. This stood in stark contrast to the actions of previous Democratic administrations, which, despite campaign promises to end wars, continued or expanded military engagements once in office.

Trump’s stance on reducing foreign military involvement marked a departure from the longstanding cycle of military escalation under Democratic leadership. Yet, even as he moved toward peace and restraint abroad, his first administration’s approach to military spending remained largely influenced by the military-industrial complex—a reality he must confront more directly in his 2025 agenda.

The Trump administration’s fiscal approach was entrenched in the military-industrial complex. Trump advocated for increasing military spending, and in 2019, his administration requested $732 billion for the Department of Defense for FY2020 alone—reflecting a continuation of the military-driven fiscal expansion.

Notably, the Trump administration also continued to rely heavily on private military contractors, which flourished during this period. With little oversight, defense spending and contracts grew, with military companies like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Boeing benefiting enormously.

One of the more controversial policies was the Trump administration’s continued involvement in the war in Afghanistan, where taxpayer dollars were flowing into both military operations and private contractors, despite bipartisan calls for an end to the conflict.

The second Trump Administration must focus on rooting out the massive, systemic corruption and corporate giveaways that continue to drain our resources and undermine our national security.

Will President Trump now reign in military spending and fight the entrenched interests that have profited from endless war?

The Biden Administration:

The Biden administration’s 2023 budget proposed a military spending request of $813 billion. This included funds for continued involvement in global conflicts, counterterrorism operations, and military contractors.

While the Biden administration has faced criticism for its handling of the war in Afghanistan, it also made efforts to address the domestic impacts of military spending, focusing on rebuilding infrastructure and increasing social safety nets. However, waste, fraud, and abuse continued to plague the system. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), for example, reported more than $100 billion in improper Medicare and Medicaid payments in 2023, echoing concerns about the massive inefficiencies within federal spending.

With Dick Cheney’s endorsement of the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, the Democrats were officially recognized as the war contractors’ party, with Trump as a threat to business as usual.

Cheney’s endorsement of the Democratic nominee marked a pivotal shift in the political landscape, where the party that once claimed to stand against endless wars had now fully embraced the military-industrial complex.

It’s encouraging to see that in recent years a growing number of Americans and lawmakers are beginning to recognize the dangers of unchecked military spending and corruption. However, the consequences of years of waste, fraud, and abuse will take years to undo. The growing recognition of the necessity of reform must translate into transparency and fiscal discipline.

This Administration must be made aware of glaring examples of waste and corruption which, in the past, became “business as usual:”

$10 Billion in Cash… Vanished

After the U.S. invasion of Iraq, over $10 billion in freshly minted $100 bills, shrink-wrapped into bundles of $75,000 each, were placed on skids and loaded onto a C-130 transport to be flown from the United States directly to the U.S.’ Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Baghdad.

Over $10 BILLION in CASH disappeared in an orgy of corruption, ultimately ending up in the hands of enemies of the United States. That the money derived from proceeds from the sale of Iraq oil compounded the corruption, placing an exclamation point on zero accountability in protecting Iraq’s money or, as you will see, the taxpayers.

A Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan estimated the cost of waste, fraud, and abuse to be upwards of $60 BILLION, deriving from a lack of oversight, no internal controls in keeping track of who received the money, who spent it, and what it was spent for—and if indeed its purpose was accomplished.

A 2007 audit of Iraq Reconstruction couldn’t determine how $1.3 BILLION for Iraq internal security was spent.

Well-connected government contractors cashed in, overcharging the government for tens of millions, notably Halliburton, which overcharged the government $61 million for transporting oil into Iraq.

DynCorp nicked U.S. taxpayers for millions, inflating Iraq contract costs and billing the U.S. for unauthorized projects, like an Olympic-sized swimming pool built in a war zone.

RTX (Raytheon) was caught in a web of no-bid contracts, involving bribery, fraud, lying about labor and material costs, and double-billing. RTX (Raytheon) paid back $950 million in a settlement last October.

Trillions of hard-earned U.S. taxpayer dollars were spent on a war based on lies, notably the biggest one: that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) ready to use against the U.S. Iraq did not.

Years later, the WMDs have been discovered, not in Iraq, but in Washington. Lying is a Weapon of Mass Destruction. Corruption is a Weapon of Mass Destruction. A $37 trillion dollar deficit is a Weapon of Mass Destruction.

This is the war machine of wealth transfer at work. Each conflict escalates the flow of public money into private hands, further enriching defense contractors, military suppliers, and multinational corporations, while the costs of war—lives lost, communities shattered, and nations destabilized—are borne by the public. The more destruction and chaos generated abroad, the more contracting opportunities arise, providing new revenue streams for those who profit off the war economy.

The federal government needs to be cleaned from top to bottom. It must align with the principles expressing the connection between honest government and freedom. Those principles were implicit in Benjamin Franklin’s warning to the Constitutional Convention on September 17, 1787, in which he forecast the insidious danger and reciprocal nature of a corrupt government which corrupts the public and thereby induces despotism:

“… I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government, but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe further that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government.”

As he was leaving Independence Hall, Franklin was asked by Elizabeth Willing Powell, “Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?”

His reply, bids us to be eternally vigilant citizens, if we are to remain free:

“A Republic, if you can keep it.”

February 15, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US government’s deep involvement in European journalism

By Anne-Laure Dufeal | Brussels Signal | February 10, 2025

The US government, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has been funnelling millions of dollars into student and professional media outlets across Europe mainly in Eastern and Central Europe, data from US government spending has shown.

This long-term financial support has been framed as part of  Washington’s “commitment to supporting democratic values and civil society in the [European] region” under the Assistance to Europe, Eurasia and Central Asia/Economic Support Fund (AEECA/ESF PD) programmes.

The scale and scope of the funding have raised questions about the extent of US influence in shaping media narratives and civil society in these regions.

Democracy or Influence? Moldova case study 

In the heart of Eastern Europe, in Moldova, a former Soviet Union country strategically located between Ukraine and Romania, the US has quietly poured millions of dollars into the nation’s media sector.

The funding, directed toward media organisations such as Internews Network Moldova, the journalist association Asociația Presei Independente (API), the Media Alternativa Association and investigative outlet Rise Moldova, has played a pivotal role in transforming Moldova’s media landscape. It has undone, little by little, the deep-rooted influence of Russia in the country television networks replacing that with its own Biden administration American influence.

Between 2019 and 2024, the Media Alternativa Association — owner of TV8, the fourth most-watched television channel in Moldova —received $1.85 million (€1.7 million) from  Washington.

Since the beginning of the Ukraine war, Western sanctions resulted in the suspension and cancellation of licences for several Russian-owned TV stations in Moldova, creating a vacuum.

US-funded media outlets quickly moved in, filling the space once occupied by Kremlin-aligned broadcasters.

According to the Media Alternativa Association, until 2022 Moldova’s broadcast landscape remained heavily influenced by Russian networks, with political parties leveraging media holdings to shape public opinion.

That influence is now waning — replaced by institutions receiving direct financial backing from the US.

US-funded investigative outlet Rise Moldova has exclusively focused on exposing Russian influence within Moldova.

It is also a member of the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), an international investigative network with close ties to US agencies.

Critics have argued this funding has fostered a media environment more aligned with Washington’s strategic goals rather than true editorial independence.

A key architect of Moldova’s evolving media landscape is Internews Network Moldova, a US-backed organisation which has played a similar role in reshaping media environments in other Eastern European nations such as Ukraine.

Members of Internews Network Moldova – Ziarul de Gardă and NewsMaker – two of Moldova’s leading investigative media outlets, have frequently published reports linking Moldovan corruption to Russian interests.

In 2017, Internews launched a new initiative in Moldova titled “Media Enabling Democracy, Inclusion, and Accountability in Moldova” (MEDIA-M) — a project bankrolled by USAID and the UK government.

Officially, MEDIA-M sought to develop an independent, professional press sector resilient to political and financial pressures.

Its impact has been unmistakable: a media environment increasingly aligned with Western narratives and a weakened Russian presence in Moldova’s information space.

The US has also funded democratic programmes fostering the Western identity of Moldovans.

Washington’s $20 million (€19.4 million) “Moldova Resilience Initiative,” initially planned to run from 2022 to 2023 but extended to 2026, was designed to “strengthen popular support for a democratic, European Moldova” by “uniting Moldovans around a shared European identity.”

In 2024, the US government gave $83,602 to the US billionaire George Soros Moldova Foundation.

According to the website, the Soros Moldova Foundation has been supporting the European integration process of the Republic of Moldova for almost fifteen years.

These developments seemed to bear fruit when, in October 2024, Moldova held a decisive presidential election and a referendum on European Union accession.

With voters asked to choose between a pro-European future or maintaining ties with Russia, the election outcome — narrowly favouring EU integration — was attributed by some analysts, at least in part, to sustained US influence.

The monitoring of the election was entrusted to Promo-LEX, a think-tank heavily funded by the US government. In 2024 alone, Promo-LEX secured  $1.7 million (€1.6 million) in US grants.

The scale of US financial involvement in Moldova’s political and media ecosystem has been significant.

According to USAID records — some of which are no longer publicly accessible —the US has invested over $640 million (€620.6 million) in Moldova since 1992.

The actual financial commitment through grants and indirect funding mechanisms has probably hit the several  billions in payments for the whole country.

USAID “backbone” of the Ukrainian media landscape

Across the Moldovan border in Ukraine, USAID’s influence is, perhaps, even more pronounced.

Via Internews Network Ukraine, USAID funded a network of social media-driven news platforms in Ukraine, including New Voice of Ukraine, VoxUkraine, Detector Media and the Institute of Mass Information.

These outlets have published reports targeting figures including US economist Jeffrey Sachs, Republican commentator Tucker Carlson and journalist Glenn Greenwald, portraying them as part of a “Russian propaganda network”.

According to Wikileaks, Internews Network globally has ties with the Democratic Party in the US.

Oksana Romaniuk, director of the Institute of Mass Information in Ukraine, said an estimated 80 per cent of Ukrainian media outlets have collaborated with USAID in some capacity.

While this support has been instrumental in sustaining independent journalism during the ongoing conflict with Russia, it has also raised questions about the extent of US influence over Ukraine’s media environment

A report by the Centre for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), titled US Aid Freeze Numbs Ukraine, revealed that USAID was “reaching deep into areas of the state and civil society” in Ukraine.

Funding for independent media has been drawn from a $290 million (€281 million) pool allocated for democracy, human rights and governance initiatives.

These efforts, framed as support for democratic values, have also underscored the significant leverage the US holds over Ukraine’s media and civil society sectors.

USAID’s involvement in the media landscape has intensified following the outbreak of the war with Russia in 2022.

Since 2021, the organisation has provided technical support to 66 local media outlets in Ukraine, aiming to bolster independent journalism in the face of Russian disinformation and propaganda.

In the UK, the publicly-owned BBC acknowledged that USAID contributed to 8 per cent of its BBC Media Action charity funding in 2023-24.

“Like many international development organisations, BBC Media Action has been affected by the temporary pause in US government funding, which amounts to about 8 per cent of our income in 2023-24. We’re doing everything we can to minimise the impact on our partners and the people we serve,” the charity stated on its website.

While it is not directly linked to the BBC’s core news operations, that has raised questions about foreign funding in public media-led enterprises.

Similarly, it was revealed that US-owned international news outlet Politico received money via subscription to its Politico Pro platform from the US government.

Although this funding is not directly allocated to Politico’s journalism activities, subscriptions to Politico Pro — used by policymakers and industry leaders — are a source of revenue for the media organisation.

Politico is owned by Axel Springer, the media giant that also publishes the German Bild, Bild am Sonntag, Welt, Welt am Sonntag, as well as the TV channel Welt, Business Insider and the US newsletter Morning Brew.

Washington’s involvement in European media has extended beyond direct funding to local outlets.

Perhaps the most explosive revelation came in December 2024, when French investigative outlet Mediapart exposed the extent of US control over the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

According to Mediapart, Washington has supplied half of OCCRP’s budget, retained veto power over senior staff appointments, and directed investigations targeting political regimes opposed by the US, such as those in Russia and Venezuela.

OCCRP’s 2023 audit report confirmed $11 million (€10.6 million) in funding from US agencies.

This revelation has sparked concerns about the independence of OCCRP and the potential for US influence to shape its investigative priorities.

The White House’s involvement in European media and civil society appeared to be part of a broader strategy.

A paper from the US Congressional Research Services published in 2022 argued that US foreign assistance was an essential instrument of the country’s foreign policy.

“Foreign assistance is the largest component of the international affairs budget and is viewed by many Members of Congress as an essential instrument of US foreign policy,” the document stated.

It revealed that in the 2019 financial year, US foreign assistance totalled an estimated $48.18 billion (€46.7 million) of the federal budget authority.

The report said that meant US foreign assistance served the United States’ soft power and sharp power ambitions around the globe. It likened it to the Marshall Plan after the Second World War that was designed to rebuild European economies so they could resume trade with the US, benefiting US industries.

In Albania, for instance, the US has recently committed $20,000 to initiatives aimed at preventing hate speech and discrimination.

While modest compared to other regions, the funding reflected a broader pattern:  Washington’s use of financial support to advance its foreign policy interests or liberal ideals.

Observers ask, where does support for democracy end and influence begin?

The US government’s funding of media and civil society organisations has reshaped narratives and counteracted Russian influence in Eastern and Central Europe.

But at what cost? Critics have argued this financial involvement risked undermining the very independence it was designed to protect.

On February 3, USAID worldwide funding was officially halted for 90 days.

February 14, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Trump freezes all National Endowment for Democracy funding

RT | February 13, 2025

US President Donald Trump’s administration has frozen all funding to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), several media outlets reported on Wednesday. The move is said to have caused a “bloodbath” within the organization, leaving it unable to pay staff or fulfill financial commitments.

The NED, established in 1983, is officially a nonprofit organization that provides grants to support democratic initiatives worldwide. However, over the years, it has faced allegations of covertly influencing political outcomes, with critics arguing that it has taken over covert functions previously handled by the CIA, particularly those aimed at overthrowing foreign governments.

Earlier this month, Elon Musk, who heads Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and has been in charge of finding ways to cut federal spending, singled out NED, calling it a ”scam” and an “evil organization” that needs to be dissolved. Since then, the organization has reportedly been “under siege” from Musk’s DOGE, according to Free Press.

“It’s been a bloodbath,” one NED worker told the outlet, explaining that the organization has been unable to meet payroll and pay basic overhead expenses.

The NED has faced longstanding criticism over its role in supporting political movements to undermine sovereign governments. The Center for Renewing America, a think tank founded by Russell Vought, Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, released a policy paper on February 7, accusing the NED of acting as the “tip of the proverbial spear for heightened CIA and State Department efforts to foster political revolution in Ukraine.”

The report claimed that the NED had funneled tens of millions of dollars to a myriad of Ukrainian political entities and anti-Russian interests and “advanced both the ‘Orange Revolution’ and ‘Maidan Revolution’ that paved the way for the current Ukraine-Russia war.”

The NED has also faced accusations of sponsoring “color revolutions” in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan and of funding opposition groups in Belarus, Serbia, and Egypt.

“The reasons for defunding NED are as numerous as they are imperative,” Vought’s think tank wrote, listing things like “Ukraine warmongering” and “Middle East meddling” as the most clear and pressing rationales for dismantling the agency.

The NED funding freeze comes as part of broader measures by the Trump administration to cut foreign spending. This has already included a crackdown on the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Washington’s primary vehicle for funding political projects abroad. Trump earlier called for the agency to be shut down, claiming it is run by “radical lunatics.”

February 13, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , | 1 Comment

Retired Russian colonel claims Trump ‘has dirt’ on Zelensky that will force him to compromise

By Liz Heflin | Remix News | February 13, 2025

Retired Russian Armed Forces Intelligence Colonel Anatoly Matviychuk has come out swinging in the lead-up to the Munich Security Conference, saying the U.S. has compromising information on Zelensky that will force him to compromise, namely, that he has possibly embezzled large amounts of money from the funds sent to Ukraine for its defense against Russia.

In an interview with MK, the retired colonel said that President Trump “has long had a grudge against Zelensky,” since the head of the Kyiv regime supported his persecution and passed on compromising information about him to the previous U.S. administration under Biden.

“Today, Trump is skillfully dealing with everyone who once spoke out against him,” Matviychuk noted. “Among them are Zelensky and Yermak. I am sure that Trump has more than enough dirt on them.”

These may have to do with the embezzlement of money. “It is not surprising that it has now become clear that about 100 billion dollars have sunk into oblivion,” the intelligence officer noted. “I believe that in fact the U.S. knows very well where these billions ended up…”

Matviychuk claims the money ended up in Zelensky’s Spanish, Italian and British real estate. However, he also went after Zelensky’s wife.

“In addition, the million-dollar expenses of the First Lady of Ukraine, Elena Zelenskaya, in European boutiques have been well calculated,” the expert added.

Matviychuk added that Zelensky has also opened himself up to accusations of prolonging the conflict and numerous war crimes.

This is not the first time someone has claimed Zelensky has enriched himself from U.S. taxpayer money sent for his country’s defense against Russia.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project found that Zelensky and his partners owned a network of offshore companies dating back to 2012 in the British Virgin Islands, Cyprus and Belize.

The documents also revealed that before Zelenskyy became president in 2019, he gave his stake in an offshore company to a business partner but made an arrangement that the offshore company would continue paying dividends to a company Zelensky’s wife owned, the reporting project said.

In response, USA Today offered up its own “fact check,” stating: “The Pandora Papers – secret records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – highlight information about Zelensky’s overseas dealings. However, the papers don’t reveal the exact amount Zelensky or his wife have in overseas accounts. Sullivan said none of the assets claimed in the social media post were in the papers.”

USA Today also cites a 2022 Forbes piece that estimated Zelensky’s real estate portfolio at some $4 million after reports that he purchased his parents an $8 million mansion — although USA Today said the claims about an $8 million mansion were false. Nor did the magazine find any proof to back up claims that Zelensky owned three private jets or five luxury yachts. The original Instagram post targeted by USA Today reportedly stating that Zelenky owned “a 35 million dollar home in Florida and has $1.2 billion in an overseas bank account” is no longer available.

Despite no hard evidence of embezzlement, allegations have continued non-stop, with many saying that now that Donald Trump is in office, a real audit will uncover the truth.

Tucker Carlson headlined a recent episode of his podcast by claiming “Ukrainian military is selling American weapons systems on the black market, including to drug cartels on the (American) border.” His guest U.S. Col. Daniel Davis said that Zelensky had even recently made a point of denying such allegations, and “the media just reports what he says.” The colonel then added that this has been “an open secret for almost the duration of (the war).”

February 13, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Leaked documents expose US interference projects in Iran

By Kit Klarenberg | The Cradle | February 11, 2025

A bombshell leak reviewed by The Cradle exposes the depths of Washington’s long-running campaign to destabilize the Islamic Republic. 

For years, the US State Department’s Near East Regional Democracy fund (NERD) has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into covert operations aimed at toppling Tehran’s government – without success. Details on where this money goes and who benefits are typically concealed. However, this leak provides a rare glimpse into NERD’s latest regime-change blueprint.

Covert funding for Iran’s opposition

The document in question is a classified US State Department invitation for bids from private contractors and intelligence-linked entities such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and USAID. 

Circulated discreetly in August 2023, it solicited proposals to “support Iranian civil society, civic advocates, and all Iranian people in exercising their civil and political rights during and beyond” the next year’s electoral period, “in order to increase viable avenues for democratic participation.”

NERD summoned applicants to “propose activities” that would “strengthen civil society’s efforts to organize around issues of importance to the Iranian people during the election period and hold elected and unelected leaders accountable to citizen demands.” 

The State Department also wished to educate citizens on purported “flaws of Iranian electoral processes.” Submissions were to “pay special attention to developing strategies and activities that increase women’s participation in civil society, advocacy, rule of law, and good governance efforts.”

The document is filled with lofty, euphemistic language. NERD claims to champion “participatory governance, economic reform, and educational advancement,” aiming to cultivate “a more responsive and responsible Iranian government that is internally stable and externally a peaceful and productive member of the community of nations.” In other words, another compliant western client state that serves imperial interests in West Asia rather than challenging them.

NERD envisaged successful applicants coordinating with “governments, civil society organizations, community leaders, youth and women activists, and private sector groups” in these grand plans. 

State Department financing would produce “increased diversity of uncensored media” in Iran, while expanding “access to digital media through the use of secure communications infrastructure, tools, and techniques.” This would, it was forecast, improve the “ability of civil society to organize and advocate for citizens’ interests.”

‘Human subjects’

NERD viewed Iran’s 2024 election cycle and the campaigning period as “opportunities” for civil society infiltration. The plan envisioned a network of “civic actors” engaged in electoral strategies ranging from “electoral participation” to “electoral non-participation” – in other words, either mobilizing voters or undermining turnout. 

Meanwhile, “technical support and training” would be offered to aspiring female, youth, and ethnic minority leaders at all levels of governance – though no “currently serving” Iranian government official was eligible for assistance.

Once in place, this network of Iranian regime change operatives would, it was hoped, organize “mock national referendums” and other “unofficial” political action outside the Islamic Republic’s formal structures to highlight the alleged disparity between government action and public will. 

Iranians would also be assisted in drafting “manifestos” on the local population’s “unmet needs and priorities.” Reference to how crippling US and EU imposed sanctions contribute significantly to public discontent in Tehran was predictably absent. Instead, it stated:

“Activities should be nonpartisan and open to participation from a broad range of groups in order to encourage diverse actors to organize around common interests … All proposed activities must clearly demonstrate an impact upon citizens and civil society groups inside Iran. Support may be provided in-country, through third-country activities with Iranian participants, or virtually through online channels, but the applicant must demonstrate a direct link to civil society actors inside Iran and the ability to engage with these individuals safely and effectively.”

Curiously, certain expenditures were explicitly prohibited, including support for “individual political parties or attempts to advance a particular political agenda in Iran,” US-based activities, academic research, social welfare programs, commercial ventures, cultural festivals, and even “entertainment costs,” such as “receptions, social activities, ceremonies, alcoholic beverages [and] guided tours.”

Most strikingly, the embargo extended to “medical and psychological research or clinical studies using human subjects.” This raises unsettling questions about past NERD-funded projects: Have there been proposals involving human experimentation on Iranian or other foreign citizens? Were efforts to use alcohol as a destabilization tool previously entertained?

‘Rising protests’

It remains unknown which groups ultimately secured NERD funding for these regime-change efforts. The mainstream media maintains that such information is classified ostensibly due to “the risk activists face from Iran.” However, Washington’s secrecy may have less to do with security concerns and more with obscuring the questionable nature of these covert operations.

Tehran long ago wisely banned the meddlesome, subversive activities of US government agencies and intelligence fronts on its soil. However, Washington continued to support multiple western-based Iranian “exile” and diaspora groups, and associated NGOs, civil society groups, and propaganda platforms abroad. 

While US officials have publicly acknowledged these efforts, the details – including the identities of sponsored groups and individuals – are systematically concealed.

For example, since-deleted public records show NED alone invested at least $4.6 million in 51 separate counter-revolutionary efforts in Iran between 2016 and 2021. This included financing labor unions, “strengthening independent journalism,” creating a legal publication to encourage “lawyers, law students, and clerics” to agitate for “democratic” reforms, and multiple initiatives concerned with “empowering Iranian women” in business, politics, and society. 

The organization charged with delivering a specific initiative was named in just seven cases – that being the DC-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Center.

The identities of the remaining 44 recipients remain unknown. Another erased NED entry reveals that in the year leading up to the September 2022 protests in Iran, the agency spent nearly $1 million on undisclosed projects focused on “human rights” advocacy. 

Not a single participating organization was named. For instance, tens of thousands of US dollars were pumped into an anonymous entity to “monitor, document, and report on human rights violations.” The organization would, moreover:

“Work closely with its network of human rights activists [in Iran] to build their capacity in reporting, advocacy, and digital security.”

Foreign influence and the hijacking of Iran’s protests

It’s unclear whether this windfall in any way influenced the September 2022 mass unrest in Iran, but NED was markedly keeping an extremely close eye on events locally from an early stage. One week after demonstrations commenced, the Endowment encouraged anyone interested in “coverage of the rising protests” to follow its aforementioned repeat grant recipient, the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center. While Iranian protests initially generated blanket western media coverage, they fizzled out as rapidly and abruptly as they began.

In a bitter irony, protesters’ energies were significantly dampened due to the brazen exploitation of the upheaval by western actors. Embittered activists openly complained their cause had been “hijacked” by foreign elements. 

The most prominent of these US-based agitators is Masih Alinejad, an Iranian exile who has reaped hundreds of thousands of dollars from US government agencies for anti-Tehran propaganda operations. Falsely proclaiming herself to be “leading” the protest movement in the Islamic Republic was, it seems, sufficient to deter further action by locals on the ground.

This reveals the core reason why Washington conceals the recipients of its regime-change funding: Iran’s history of resisting western meddling makes its citizens deeply suspicious of foreign influence. Covert US backing erodes the legitimacy of opposition movements and fuels nationalist pushback.

Ironically, the Washington Post recently reported that many Iranians, across ideological lines, viewed US President Donald Trump’s administration’s freeze on regime-change funding as an opportunity for meaningful political evolution.

In former US president Joe Biden’s final year in office, the White House requested an additional $65 million for NERD’s operations, as outlined in the leaked tender. However, with this funding now in limbo, Iran’s western-backed opposition – largely dependent on foreign subsidies – finds itself in a state of paralysis. 

As a result, a significant impediment to genuine diplomatic engagement between Washington and Tehran may have been removed. The coming months could reveal whether this shift opens new avenues for dialogue – or simply marks a temporary pause in America’s longstanding quest for regime change in Iran.

February 12, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , , | Leave a comment

Soft Power, German-Style: What Does Germany’s GIZ Have in Common With USAID?

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – February 11, 2025

NATO countries’ ‘aid’ agencies are reeling amid Trump’s freeze on USAID and revelations on the agency’s record of global meddling and largesse. Sputnik has already explored the shady activities of USAID’s British and French cousins. Now it’s Germany’s turn.

The German Corporation for International Cooperation (German acronym GIZ) gets most of its €4 bln ($4.1 bln US) straight from the federal budget, plus EU ‘co-financing’, to support up to 1,700 projects in 120 countries.

Many of GIZ’s projects revolve around ‘climate action’ and ‘sustainability’. From organic farming in Africa to solar/wind power in Latin America, GIZ is involved in pushing countries trying to break out of poverty to adhere to development goals set by the West.

GIZ also supports things like the digitization of governance, local media, Africa’s film industry, and refugee reintegration. In Ukraine, they’ve provided over 1,100 microloans for small businesses from dance studios to fashion ateliers.

A damning 2024 Focus Magazine exposé uncovered tens of millions in questionable GIZ spending, from “vague” multi-million euro grants for “climate awareness” and monitoring projects in Thailand and Turkiye, to €5M spent to make mosques “green” in Morocco, to €44M for bike lanes in Lima as part of a €529M “climate and development partnership.”

In April 2023, the Federal Audit Office revealed, in Focus’s paraphrasing, that “nobody knows what GIZ actually does,” with lack of economic success criteria for projects, lavish salaries up to €240k, first-class flights and a fleet of luxury cars for top officials highlighting the agency’s extravagance.

Waste, combined with the increasingly sorry state of Germany’s own infrastructure amid an unprecedented economic crunch, has prompted opposition figures including the AfD’s Alice Weidel to blast the government for “squandering” millions in tax money on GIZ projects in developing nations “while the transport infrastructure in its own country is in ruins.”

GIZ-USAID cooperation has been extensive, ranging from “climate finance” projects in the developing world to small business development projects in Georgia for the EU’s Eastern Partnership (which aims to sway Russia’s neighbors toward eventual EU membership).

In Ukraine, GIZ has provided “advisory” assistance on the implementation of the EU-Ukraine association agreement – the fateful pact that triggered the 2014 coup and the present European crisis.

February 11, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Bigger Than USAID Scandal? Clinton Probe to Expose Gates, Soros and Epstein Links

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 11.02.2025

The fall of the House of Clinton would trigger a domino effect, upending globalist entities like Bilderberg, billionaires such as Bill Gates & George Soros, and their bought politicians worldwide, says Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel.

How Could the Clinton Foundation Probe Expose Globalists?

  • Ortel calls CF the largest unprosecuted fraud. If true, its trustees, executives and donors – both US and foreign – could face IRS and legal probes at home and abroad.
  • Hundreds of billions in grants could be returned to US and foreign governments if fraud is proven, according to the analyst.

What Countries, Entities, and Private Funds Have Donated to the Clintons?

  • Australia, France, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, the UK, Ukraine and others funded CF, public records show.
  • The largest known donor is UNITAID (WHO), which has sent hundreds of millions more than CF has reported to the IRS since 2006.
  • Other suspicious donors: DFID, AusAID, NORAD and aid agencies from Canada, Ireland and Sweden, Ortel says.
  • Private foundations also funded Clinton frauds. The Gates Foundation has donated since 2005 – while convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein collaborated with Bill Clinton. George Soros is another key donor.

Who Promoted the Clintons’ Globalist Web?

  • Harvard, Yale and Columbia University gave credibility to Clinton charity frauds, Ortel says.
  • Legacy media & publishers boosted Clinton Global Initiative events, ignoring that none were legally registered charities.

Investigation Into the Clinton Charitable Work

  • A full probe into CF and its offshoots is needed ASAP, Ortel says.
  • A 2018 hearing revealed CF owes $2.5 billion to the US government for acting as a foreign agent instead of a nonprofit.
  • But the scandal exceeds $2.5 billion – Bill Clinton used charity as a front, with no honest accounting for AIDS, climate, or Haiti’s missing $10 billion, Ortel concludes.

February 11, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , | 2 Comments

Trump’s USAID purge has revealed US scheming in Kiev, but won’t stop it

By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | February 8, 2025

The catastrophe of the Ukraine War will leave a long trail of painful questions. Because this hubristic proxy confict has become such a pie-in-the-face fiasco for the West, there will be plenty of resistance to honest answers for a very long time.

But facts undermining self-serving Western narratives have started emerging already during the war. Most recently, revelations about the activities of USAID have delivered another hard blow to Western – and official Ukrainian – deception and self-deception.

But before we get to USAID, let’s note that those are not the first embarrassing disclosures with regard to the West’s harebrained and bloody attempt to use Ukraine to demolish Russia. Those with eyes to see have long known, for instance, that large-scale war would have been avoided if the West and Kiev had not deliberately sabotaged the 2015 Minsk-2 agreement, a short but viable blueprint to end a still comparatively small conflict, which was endorsed by the UN General Assembly. Or if the West had not brushed Moscow off when it sent what was, in effect, a clear last warning in late 2021.

Then there was a very early opportunity to stop the war, namely the almost-peace of the Belarus and Istanbul talks in spring 2022. Kiev, shocked by the reality of escalation, was ready to take this exit ramp. The conditions offered by Russia and the concessions it made during the negotiations – above all ending its advance on Kiev – amounted to a good deal for Ukraine, as one of Ukraine’s key negotiators has since admitted. And yet the West chose more war, and an obedient Vladimir Zelensky followed its lead. That failure, too, has long been denied but has to be acknowledged now under the weight of the evidence.

Last but not least, the ongoing, absurd Western lying about the Nord Stream pipeline attacks – the largest ecoterrorist assault in European history and an act of barely-covert war among NATO allies – is not even amusing anymore. All that’s left of that big lie is a reverse IQ test, sorting the indoctrinated dim from the normally intelligent.

And now, USAID and Ukraine. There, the gist of the matter is that the Trumpists are now purging and (probably) recasting that agency in what is a mean fight among US establishment insiders. Don’t be too optimistic: Despite American leader Donald Trump’s and henchman-in-chief Elon Musk’s loud noises about USAID being a “criminal organization” that is “run by a bunch of radical lunatics,” the Washington “swamp” is not being drained; it’s just changing management.

However, as a side effect, details of some of USAID’s very seedy activities are coming to light. Not that we have not known before that this “humanitarian aid” and “development agency” – founded in 1961 at the height of John F. Kennedy’s “liberal” drive to escalate the US struggle against genuine decolonization in the Global South – has always served as a front for intelligence and in particular for the type of massive subversion that precedes and produces coups, regime change, and “color revolutions.”

Indeed, the more honest defenders of USAID have always admitted – really, boasted of – the fact that it has been a tool of strategy in the geopolitical sense of the term. Even the presidential executive order that initiated the Trump administration’s drive against foreign aid in general has now admitted that the latter serves “to destabilize world peace by promoting ideas in foreign countries that are directly inverse to harmonious and stable relations internal to and among countries.”

Indeed, USAID’s last, Biden-administration head Samantha Power – a comically disingenuous regime change careerist and “genocide expert” who can recognize that crime anywhere as long as she’s paid or promoted, just not in US allies such as Israel – is a perfect embodiment of USAID’s rotten top and core.

Don’t get me wrong: It would be silly not to recognize that USAID has also provided some real assistance, even if never – yes, really never – without political strings attached. Hence, if you think of “aid” as something given exclusively or even mainly out of compassion, then it’s a misnomer here, as USAID critic Mike Benz has rightly pointed out.

In any case, before being gutted, USAID had an annual budget somewhere between 30 and 40 billion dollars and around 10,000 employees, including 6,000 outside the US. In fiscal year 2023, the agency was active in 130 countries (there are about 200 total). And its activities did include things such as food assistance, health services, and disaster relief in countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sudan, and Yemen.

Let’s also be fair to those USAID staff and grant recipients – American or not – who have genuinely helped in valuable ways and out of sincere good will, often under harsh as well as dangerous conditions. In the world as it really is, many must make deals with the devil: it is not their fault that their organization has always worked as a front for political influence and subversion as well. Indeed, it is a bitter irony that those who really needed what was actually useful about USAID assistance and those distributing it are now being punished together with those who befouled all of it with their vile as well as rather ham-fisted subversion games. Samantha Power, for one, will, obviously, have the softest of landings, in a bespoke think-tank, Ivy League university, “consulting” job (i.e., influence peddling), or media sinecure.

One simple indicator of just how corrupt USAID has been is that, recently, the very top recipient of its aid has been, as it happens, Ukraine: in 2023, for instance, its hand-out of more than $16 billion left runner-up Ethiopia in the dust with less than $1.7 billion, that is about a tenth of Kiev’s allotment. So much for helping the neediest the most.

But serving as just one more funnel to pump endless gazillions into the always wide-open maw of the insatiable and highly demanding Zelensky regime was only one, if you wish, ordinary aspect of USAID’s special role in Ukraine.

This is where we return to those pesky revelations about the war: It turns out that USAID has also proactively and systematically helped to suffocate any hope for peace. And not in just one but two ways.

First, we now learn that almost the entire Ukrainian media sphere – 90 percent of news organizations – depended on USAID funding. Indeed, Olga Rudenko, editor-in-chief of the Kyiv Independent (the irony…), a staunchly info-warring publication, fears that losing access to the USAID trough “has caused harm to independent Ukrainian journalism on par with the COVID-19 pandemic and the onset of Russia’s full-scale war.” Hear, hear.

More generally, a recent article in the Columbia Journalism Review is worrying that losing USAID money will threaten “independent” journalism worldwide. No wonder, as USAID itself has proudly claimed that the US government “is now the largest public donor to independent media development globally.”

But any talk of “independence” here is, just like Rudenko’s complaint, obvious Orwellian-grade propaganda: Journalism that literally depends for its very existence on funding from an organization serving as a front for the foreign interests of the single most powerful and aggressive country in the world may be anything, but it cannot be – by definition – independent. You may, if that’s your thing, politically sympathize with such journalism or argue that you feel it is still, on balance, useful, if you wish, but please cut out the absurdity.

In practice, Ukraine is a perfect illustration of how such media dependency-across-borders can easily end in catastrophe: Anyone who knows Ukrainian well enough – as I do – can have a look for themselves. What they will find is a Potemkin village of pseudo-diversity, at best, with very few and embattled exceptions. In reality, the Ukrainian public sphere has been massively manipulated by a monotonous diet of pseudo-”patriotic” messaging. The single most urgent question concerning Ukraine’s own national interests, however, has been systematically maligned and made taboo: namely, if serving as proxy war cannon fodder for the West has been worth it.

The second manner in which USAID has promoted this devastating war was, if anything, even worse, in the sense of more drastic and hands-on: It’s now almost forgotten, but when Ukraine’s current past-best-by-date leader Vladimir Zelensky actually did face and win an election in 2019, his single concrete – and sensible – promise was to seek peace through negotiations.

Clearly, at the time, that promise was a major factor in his unprecedented landslide victory. Once in office, for a very short moment, it seemed as if Zelensky was trying to keep that promise. But then – years before the 2022 escalation – he made a 180-degree turn and emerged as an uncompromising and shortsighted nationalist and a tool of the US – if a very expensive and occasionally capricious one. It is likely that he will soon be discarded, as tools can be. But the damage he has already done to his country is enormous.

Many observers have long been puzzled by early Zelensky’s terrible turn. Was it fear of the powerful and aggressive Ukrainian far-right? Was it a misconceived play for even more popularity? Was it money? Was it Western pressure? We still don’t know the whole story, but we do know one important new thing: a wave of “popular” resistance “from below” and by “civil society” against Zelensky’s initial attempts to look for peace was not genuine. Instead, it had massive Western backing, including from USAID.

In particular, the organization was one of the key sponsors of a “joint statement” which presented a concerted threat to Zelensky in 2019, that is, almost immediately after he assumed office. On the surface the product of 70 Ukrainian NGOs, this was, in reality, a massive affront to democracy and the rule of law: Its sole purpose was to unconstitutionally constrain the newly elected president with so-called “red lines” and, in particular, nullify what so many of his voters wanted, namely an honest search for peace. None of this means that Zelensky is innocent. On the contrary, it was his duty and, literally, his job to resist such shameless pressure tactics and their foreign backers and stand up for his voters and the country as a whole. His failure to do so is his and will remain so forever.

Those NGOs were supported not only by USAID, but also by the National Endowment for Democracy, another US subversion front, the US embassy, and NATO, to name only a few. Whatever else the so-called Ukrainian “diaspora” (that is organized Ukrainian exile nationalist organizations rooted in World War Two fascist nationalism) was up to, it also took part in that big arm-twisting: the Temerty Foundation,  a key “diaspora” power broker, also figured among those NGO supporters.

Here is the sad irony: Ukraine has never been “free” and it has never had a “civil society” of its own. Instead, it has been used and manipulated by false “friends” from the West and a comprador “elite” that has put Western interests above those of their own compatriots. Together, they have openly and covertly colonized Ukraine’s public sphere and fed its people into a meatgrinder proxy war that is being lost as we speak. Soon, the West will sell out what is left of Ukraine entirely. None of this is unprecedented: It is a classic pattern of imperialist abuse. All those smart Westerners who have tried to apply “post-colonial” categories to the case of Ukraine: Go ahead – but look at yourself. You are the baddies.

In any case, don’t mistake the purge of USAID for some kind of principal improvement. It is true that some – rest assured: very selective – light is now thrown on its seedy, subversive activities. That’s a plus, for now. And yes, it’s fun to see Centrists and liberals exposed. Schadenfreude can be legitimate.

Of course, none of the above means that Washington intends to generally abandon foul play. On the contrary, under new Trumpist management, the US will remain as mean as ever. There will always be money for subversion, sabotage, disinformation campaigns, regime change, and coups. It will just flow through different channels, and the LGBTQ+ and DEI angles will be dropped. News flash: The US did not need those to coup Iran and Guatemala in the 1950s and have Chile regime-changed and its president Salvador Allende murdered in 1973, for instance.

Even the good old USAID is down but not dead: Marco Rubio, Donald Trump’s extraordinarily obedient secretary of state, has already announced that its work just has to be aligned with American foreign policy. How funny: As if it had not.

Tarik Cyril Amar, a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory

February 8, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , | Leave a comment

WikiLeaks Exposes Internews: USAID-Funded Media Machine Behind Global Influence

Sputnik – 08.02.2025

The infamous US agency USAID funneled nearly half a billion dollars to Internews Network, a non-profit deeply involved in media operations all over the world, WikiLeaks has revealed.

In 2023 alone, Internews Network collaborated with 4,291 media outlets, produced 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching 778 million people, and trained over 9,000 journalists. Operating in 30+ countries, it has key offices in the US, London, Paris, and regional HQs in Kiev, Bangkok, and Nairobi. But there’s more to the story:

  • Founded in 1982, Internews claims to help media outlets achieve financial sustainability and promote “trustworthy information” – a mission it pursues with hefty US government funding.
  • By 2023, the organization had partnered with nearly 4,300 media outlets, trained thousands of journalists, and simultaneously supported social media censorship initiatives.
  • USAID alone poured $472.6 million into Internews, though the organization also received funding from AOL-Time Warner Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and other private donors.
  • Grants include $10.7 million from USAID to support “high-quality responsible journalism” in Liberia and $11 million for “media enabling democracy” in Moldova, per datarepublican.com.
  • The US State Department chipped in $1.48 million to establish “safe, accessible, and life-saving information services” in South Sudan.
  • Another $19.5 million USAID grant was issued to Internews to “position Jordanian society to effectively advocate for citizen-driven interests”.
  • Adding to the intrigue, Internews CEO Jeanne Bourgault and other key figures recently had their bios scrubbed from the organization’s website — but WikiLeaks, noticing the move, helpfully provided archived copies.

February 8, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , , | Leave a comment

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