DISINFO: The West wants to oust Ukraine’s billionaires and impose full control over it
SUMMARY
Important, rich and power-wielding people meddle in the way the G7 countries are controlling Ukraine. Reforms in Ukraine rather look like an occupation. No-one should be left after them except gauleiters, who will be doing all they are told. Since the end of the Second World War, the International Monetary Fund has been acting in all countries on the same pattern. Local powerful people must be gone so that external managers take over their administrative functions. Not only Ukrainian business tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky will be targeted. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will have to stand up to each oligarch or be a pariah for the G7 embassies. The Kolomoisky case is a public flogging. The West will watch it, egging Zelenskyy on. What the West requires from Zelenskyy is obedience.
RESPONSE
This is a recurring disinformation narrative by pro-Kremlin media, claiming that the West is controlling Ukraine’s domestic and foreign policy, its economy and virtually all other spheres of life. Since the overthrow of the manifestly pro-Kremlin president Viktor Yanukovych in 2014, Ukraine has been trying to get rid of Russian influence. Western institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank provide Kyiv with financial aid and consultancy.
Corruption still permeates many facets of life in Ukraine. It is essential to overcome it in order to achieve stability and raise living standards. Financial tycoons known in Ukraine as oligarchs often stand in the way, sometimes defending their own financial interests and unwilling to lose clout.
The claim is made in the context in which Ihor Kolomoisky, one of Ukraine’s most powerful oligarchs, has recently come under criticism from the United States. The US State Department imposed sanctions on him on 5 March 2021 for “significant corruption”. The businessman is now in Ukraine and his assets abroad are likely to be impacted. Ukraine’s Constitution forbids the extradition of its nationals, but Kolomoisky has several passports and there is theoretical speculation that he could be treated as a foreign citizen.
Read more pro-Kremlin propaganda claims about Ukraine’s alleged loss of statehood and turning into a colony.