NYT Discovers That Ukraine Is a Kleptocracy
I'm glad that Vladimir Putin's attempt to seize Ukraine in 2022 failed. While the fate of Ukraine is nowhere near the top of my concerns then, nor is it now, on balance, it seems pretty clear to me that at least most of Ukraine, the non-Russian-speaking parts, at least, are clearly not Russia and don't want Russians ruling over them.
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In the early days of the war, it made sense to give Ukraine aid to push back against Putin's invasion. It served NATO's policy of weakening Putin, who routinely employs gray zone warfare tactics to weaken European countries and the United States, and by late 2023, Ukraine had broken the back of Russia's already limited ability to project power using conventional military tactics. Putin had paid a very steep price for his adventurism, and it was time to find a way to end the bloodshed in a stalemated war with no end in sight.
The US had no strong strategic interests at stake, and Russia's ability to project power into NATO countries was much diminished.
Unfortunately, to rally support for a cold-blooded policy intended to weaken Putin, both Pravda Media and the leaders of the Western alliance engaged in a propaganda campaign to convince ordinary people that the war was a battle between good and evil rather than a battle between one evil kleptocracy and another, slightly less evil kleptocracy.
Obama's lack of support for Ukraine during his term—he allowed Russia to seize about 20% of the country during his term, because he rightly decided that the US had no strategic interest in intervening in what amounted to a limited border dispute—made sense. In fact, Obama's administration helped overthrow the Ukrainian government in a color revolution to install a more Washington-friendly government and left it at that.
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So much for its commitment to "democracy."
I have no strong opinion about whether the old Ukrainian government or the newer one was better for Ukrainians. The old one was a kleptocracy, as is the new one. The biggest difference is that the current Zelensky government has a much better PR team.
Zelensky’s Government Sabotaged Oversight, Allowing Corruption to Festerhttps://t.co/zGnkzIv7QI
— Curt Mills (@CurtMills) December 5, 2025
The New York Times, over the weekend, published a story about just how corrupt the current government has been. Stories about the massive theft of aid money have not exactly been secret, but until recently, they have been downplayed and portrayed as outliers in an otherwise Western liberal democracy.
That has never been true. Ukraine is and has been as corrupt as the day is long. And the most celebrated leader among the transnational elite has led a kleptocracy every bit as bad as its critics have claimed.
When Russian troops invaded Ukraine, Kyiv’s Western allies faced a dilemma: how to spend billions supporting a government fighting Russia without watching the money vanish into the pockets of corrupt managers and government officials.
The stakes were high because Ukraine’s vital wartime industries — power distribution, weapons purchases and nuclear energy — were controlled by state-owned companies that have long served as piggy banks for the country’s elite.
To protect their money, the United States and European nations insisted on oversight. They required Ukraine to allow groups of outside experts, known as supervisory boards, to monitor spending, appoint executives and prevent corruption.
Over the past four years, a New York Times investigation found, the Ukrainian government systematically sabotaged that oversight, allowing graft to flourish.
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Corruption and war have always been two sides of the same coin, with the difference between the best and the worst offenders being a matter of degree rather than kind in most cases. However, in some cases, the corruption is a side effect of spending gobs of money, and in others, spending gobs of money is the point. In the latter cases, the kleptocrats want the war to continue indefinitely because the war is good for business.
That's Ukraine, where billions have slipped from Western taxpayers' pockets into those of the Ukrainian elite.
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration has stacked boards with loyalists, left seats empty or stalled them from being set up at all. Leaders in Kyiv even rewrote company charters to limit oversight, keeping the government in control and allowing hundreds of millions of dollars to be spent without outsiders poking around.
Supervisory boards serve an essential oversight function, allowing independent experts, typically from other countries, to scrutinize major decisions inside Ukrainian state-owned companies.l
Westerners generally see one side of the war: brave soldiers who sacrifice their lives on the front lines, or innocent civilians in Ukrainian cities being bombed by Putin's military. Those images are real, but only half the story. The other half is an elite that parties in Kyiv and jets off on luxurious vacations financed by Western taxpayers who don't just fund the Ukrainian military, but much of Ukraine's government and economy.
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In documents and interviews with about 20 Western and Ukrainian officials who have worked closely with company boards or served on them, The Times found political interference not only at Energoatom but also at the state-owned electricity company Ukrenergo as well as at Ukraine’s Defense Procurement Agency. Some people spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential deliberations.
An adviser for Mr. Zelensky declined to comment, saying that the supervisory boards were not the president’s responsibility.
European leaders have privately criticized but reluctantly tolerated Ukrainian corruption for years, reasoning that supporting the fight against Russia’s invasion was paramount. So, even as Ukraine undermined outside oversight, European money kept flowing.
“We do care about good governance, but we have to accept that risk,” said Christian Syse, the special envoy to Ukraine from Norway, one of Kyiv’s top donors. He added: “Because it’s war. Because it’s in our own interest to help Ukraine financially. Because Ukraine is defending Europe from Russian attacks.”
The political meddling with Energoatom’s supervisory board is a case study in how Ukraine’s leaders have blocked efforts to prevent corruption. The Zelensky administration delayed the formation of Energoatom’s board and, when it finally came together, the government left a seat empty — impeding the board’s ability to act.
The corruption that riddles the Ukrainian government isn't a consequence of its failure to get its arms around a common wartime problem; it's a product of policies that go all the way to the top.
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Corruption is policy, and Western governments are well aware of it, and of course, corruption can spill over. Ask the Biden Crime Family about that.
In any case, I was pleasantly surprised to see the story in the Times. One story does not an investigative series make, and it will take more than that to penetrate the public consciousness.
But it is a start. Years late, but it's a start.