Report: Missing $1.8 Billion in Aid Linked to Corrupt Oligarch Who ‘Bankrolled’ Ukraine Revolution

by Debra Heine

In a live video presentation, Thursday night, conservative radio host Glenn Beck accused the Obama administration of funneling $1.8 billion in taxpayer dollars to Ukraine in order to fund the Ukrainian revolution against Russia.

Calling the scandal bigger than the Reagan-era “Iran Contra” scandal, The Blaze founder said that his research team made the discovery while looking into the phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky, which spurred the Democrats’ now-failed impeachment charade.

Beck explained that there were “things in the phone call that just didn’t make sense to us” and that prompted them to do a deep dive into what happened to the $1.8 billion in aid that went missing in PrivatBank, the largest commercial bank in Ukraine, which is owned by the corrupt oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky.

After former president Barack Obama made then-Vice President Joe Biden his “point man” in Ukraine, the Veep sent $3 billion in aid to Ukraine, and Burisma Holdings—where his son Hunter sat on the board—was implicated in the disappearance of $1.8 billion of that money.

The notoriously corrupt Burisma has been under investigation on and off for years for various financial crimes.

Blaze TV scrutinized a Feb. 26 letter from the Latvian government to the Ukrainians, which, according to Beck, led his team to follow the money to Kolomoisky, whose firm, Privat Group, also happens to be the controlling shareholder of Burisma.

Investigative journalist John Solomon reported on the Latvian law enforcement letter in December, 2019:

The Feb. 18, 2016 alert to Ukraine came from the Latvian prosecutorial agency responsible for investigating money laundering, and it specifically questioned whether Vice President Joe Biden’s younger son and three other officials at Burisma Holdings were the potential beneficiaries of suspect funds.

“The Office for Prevention of Laundering of Proceeds Derived from Criminal Activity … is currently investigating suspicious activity of Burisma Holdings Limited,” the Latvian agency also known as the FIU wrote Ukraine’s financial authorities.

The letter identified “a series of loan payments totaling about $16.6 million that were routed from companies in Belize and the United Kingdom to Burisma” through Kolomoisky’s PrivatBank between 2012 and 2015.

The flagged funds were “partially transferred” to Hunter Biden, a board member at Burisma since May 2014, and three other officials working for the Ukrainian natural gas company, the Latvian memo said.

The letter asked Ukrainian officials for any evidence about whether the funds were involved in corruption and whether Ukrainian officials were investigating Burisma and the recipients of the money.

The U.S. State Department placed Kolomoisky on a visa ban list prohibiting him from entering the country due to allegations that he had ordered murders and beheadings.

Allegedly, the oligarch”hired rowdies armed with baseball bats, iron bars, gas and rubber bullet pistols, and chainsaws” to intimidate rival companies. Beck pointed out that all this was known when Hunter Biden joined the board at Burisma, yet incredibly, shortly thereafter, the visa ban was lifted and Kolomoisky was allowed admittance in the U.S.

“Why would you do that?!” Beck exclaimed. “The guy is Tony Soprano. He will kill you with a chainsaw!”

Beck said that he wanted an answer to that question because it “looked like the Bidens were legitimizing a billionaire thug.”

The Daily Beast reported last April that the FBI had been investigating Kolomoisky for “potential financial crimes, including money laundering” for quite some time.

During the hostilities with Russia, Kolomoisky reportedly funded his own private army of 20,000 men to fight the so-called separatists. He is known in international circles as “the oligarch who bankrolled Ukraine’s war.”

Beck said he couldn’t prove it, but it was entirely plausible that the $1.8 billion in missing aid went toward that effort.

The Obama administration refused to provide Ukraine with lethal weapons to fight Russian-backed separatists, apparently out of deference to Russia, but did offer a range of other military and security aid in addition to “blankets,” according to the AP.

By March 2015, the Obama administration had provided more than $120 million in security aid for Ukraine and promised $75 million worth of equipment, including counter-mortar radars, night vision devices and medical supplies, according to the Defense Department. The U.S. also pledged 230 Humvee vehicles.

If The Blaze’s theory is correct, Obama provided Ukraine with a whole lot more, only under the table to avoid agitating Russia.

Former Secretary of State John Kerry seemed to admit as much recently when he defended Biden’s firing in 2016 of Viktor Shokin, the top prosecutor who was investigating Burisma.

Kerry argued that everyone in the Obama administration wanted Shokin fired. “We knew that if Ukraine was going to survive and win the revolution in the end—the Maiden—they had to get rid of that prosecutor,” he said. Why would they have to fire a prosecutor who was investigating Burisma in order to win a revolution?

Джон Керрі про Шокіна: "Ми знали: для того, щоби Україна вижила, і вийшла переможцем із революції, після Майдану, вони мали його здихатися." pic.twitter.com/1Ge5Lnt0vw

— Голос Америки Українською (@holosameryky) February 2, 2020

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Debra Heine is a contributor to American Greatness.
Photo “Ukraine Revolution” by Mstyslav Chernov. CC BY-SA 3.0.

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