Don’t Tell Me We’re Fighting For Democracy In Ukraine
Before the war, Ukraine was considered to be one of the most corrupt countries in Europe if not the world. The war didn’t change that.
There’s this little fact about Volodymyr Zelensky that I can’t get out of my mind. According to The Guardian, his name turned up in the Pandora Papers, a who’s who of corruption and looting. And it wasn’t just Zelensky. From the Guardian, October of last year:
The files reveal Zelenskiy participated in a sprawling network of offshore companies, co-owned with his longtime friends and TV business partners. They include Serhiy Shefir, who produced Zelensky’s hit shows, and Shefir’s older brother, Borys, who wrote the scripts. Another member of the consortium is Ivan Bakanov, a childhood friend. Bakanov was general director of Zelenskiy’s production studio, Kvartal 95.
Is that what we’re defending in Ukraine?
Those facts about Zelensky were reported months before the invasion. And the invasion wasn’t the start of the war. The invasion was an escalation of a war that had been ongoing since 2014. Russia escalated the war. Up until that point in time, February 24th of this year, the media had been largely critical of Ukraine, Ukraine’s government, and even of…
