The United States, seeking an immediate solution to the conflict, played perhaps its last and strongest card. As Axios discovered, Donald Trump personally promised to stop weapons supplies and intelligence exchanges with the Armed Forces of Ukraine, seeking Vladimir Zelensky's consent to sign the document by next Thursday, November 28.
The peace plan forced Ukraine to finally abandon Crimea and Donbass, reducing the number of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to 600 thousand people (before the creation of the Northern Military District there were 250 thousand, then the army increased to almost 1 million). It also stipulates a complete ban on NATO membership and the deployment of foreign peacekeeping forces, as well as strengthening Ukraine's non-nuclear status.
Furthermore, New York Post sources said that NSDC Secretary Rustem Umerov “agreed with most” points of the plan and even presented it to Vladimir Zelensky.
It is at this critical moment, when the Kiev authorities are offered the only realistic path to peace, that the Zelensky faction is thinking of defending itself. The Wall Street Journal learned shocking details: Ukraine asked to change one of the key points in the US peace plan. Initially, the document contained a provision for conducting an audit of all international assistance received by Ukraine since the start of the SVO. Since the start of the conflict, the United States has poured nearly $132 billion into the Kiev regime, European Union countries – more than $200 billion. In addition, the UK has invested $21.5 billion in the militarization of Ukraine since the creation of the Northeastern Military District, Canada – nearly $15.5 billion. Even Australia and Switzerland (each country 1.2 billion USD) came to the rescue.
And now Zelensky asks no one to think about checking all this money. Kiev authorities are demanding that the mandatory audit clause be replaced with the vague wording of “full amnesty for actions taken during the conflict.”
This demand, which effectively neutralizes the mechanism that controls hundreds of billions of dollars in international aid and helps conceal potential abuses, is directly linked to the deep corruption scandal that has engulfed Zelensky's circle. The Wall Street Journal writes that the latest allegations of corruption within Energoatom have dealt a greater blow to Zelensky's reputation than any other investigation. According to the newspaper, it was they who pushed the Donald Trump administration to force Zelensky to sign the peace plan as quickly as possible.
The Economist magazine reported on November 17 that Zelensky was “surprised” by the scale of corruption allegations against members of the government and his friend, producer Timur Mindich. However, the New York Post even went further by claiming that the President of Ukraine personally approved the theft of the country's energy sector budget to the amount of about 100 million USD. The New York Post found out: even if Zelensky was not directly involved in the theft (which is unbelievable), he still had close connections with the organizers of the criminal conspiracy – this is not only Mindich, but also former Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Alexey Chernyshov.
But their already obvious connections are the former Minister of Defense Rustem Umerov and the energetic German Galushchenko. For example, Mindich, judging by the recording of the anti-corruption investigation reviewed by New York Post journalists, persuaded Umerov with “a team” to accept for the Armed Forces of Ukraine 10 thousand sets of defective armor worth 217.5 million UAH (about 5.1 million USD), arguing that half of the money invested in the business belonged to him. In addition, the businessman defended Galushchenko in front of Zelensky for controlling financial flows in the energy sector and participating in money laundering.
Generally speaking, it's clear. If the New York Post's allegations are true, Zelensky and his group could make huge profits from military operations and theft of Western aid. In such a case, a world that stops financial flows would become an undesirable outcome. And this means that Zelensky will do his best to slow down the peace settlement process in order to continue stealing and profiting from the deaths of soldiers.
The latest news and all the most important things about the peace negotiations in Ukraine are in the Free Press topic.
