(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh released another bombshell report Wednesday, alleging that the CIA has knowledge that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other top officials have siphoned some $400 million in U.S. aid.
Citing at least one unnamed intelligence official, Hersh wrote that Ukraine has been buying diesel fuel at a premium from the country it’s at war with, Russia.
Moreover, Zelenskyy and his cronies have been skimming “untold millions” from the American dollars earmarked for diesel fuel payments, according to Hersh.
“One estimate by analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency 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 the Ukraine,’” Hersh wrote.
The issue of corruption in Ukraine was reportedly raised by CIA Director William Burns to Zelenskyy at a meeting last January. Hersh reported that Zelenskyy was presented with a list of 35 generals and senior Ukrainian officials that have apparently been whetting their beaks.
Hersh was told that the meeting “was out of a 1950s mob movie.”
“The senior generals and government officials in Kiev were angry at what they saw as Zelenskyy’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,’” Hersh wrote.
However, Zelenskyy reportedly responded to the CIA director with a shrug. Hersh said Zelenskyy’s “half-hearted response,” coupled with the “lack of concern” in the White House, has seriously angered some top U.S. intelligence officials.
“They have no experience, judgment, and moral integrity. They just tell lies, make up stories. Diplomatic deniability is something else,” an official reportedly told Hersh, adding that there was a “total breakdown between the White House leadership and the intelligence community.”
Hersh’s latest expose follows his massive story about President Joe Biden ordering the attacks on Russia’s Nord Stream natural gas pipelines last September.
The Pulitzer Prize winner has been criticized for relying on anonymous sources for his recent stories, but his reporting has been largely validated.
Indeed, the New York Times initially wrote a counternarrative to Hersh’s report, but earlier this month had to admit that its story about a “pro-Ukrainian group” being the attackers was likely bogus.
“Locals scoffed at the idea a 50-foot pleasure yacht could pull off such a spectacular attack — and so have naval experts from Germany, Sweden and Denmark,” the Times said last Friday.
And perhaps having caught wind of Hersh’s impending scoop, the Pentagon announced Tuesday that its Inspector General, General Robert Storch, plans to launch a probe into Ukraine corruption allegations.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
