By James Bradley and Flor Blanco, Photo by Pixelbay
JANUARY 20, 2025, WASHINGTON DC—Hours after being sworn in, re-elected President Trump dove into his first day of work as the 47th President, writing a slew of executive orders, and actions. One of them included a temporary hold on all US foreign aid funds. Is Trump’s move a flagrant and abrupt shift in policy to thumb his nose up in the face of the prior administration? Or is it something more? In an article written by Kot and Olienak, “Payments are suspended until such programs are reviewed for effectiveness and consistency with US foreign policy. Such a review must take place within 90 days.”
A Word About Effectiveness and Consistency
Several articles about US foreign policy guidelines were mentioned in earlier Uncensored Beat publications in July, August, and November of 2024. Referenced information not only include snippets of the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA), and the Arms Export Control Act (AEC), but also include feedback from the OMB audit and GAO audit performed in 2024. These are among the guidelines that help to strengthen Trump’s policy changes for US foreign aid. Per the FAA, AEC, and GAO guidelines, oversight falls under the office of the US Secretary of State (SOS). US law taps the shoulder of the SOS to ensure foreign aid agreements comply with these rules and the overarching tenets of the current president’s national security policy.
Anthony Blinken, the former SOS under President Biden, was filmed enjoying pizza and playing in a rock band during his visit to Ukraine in May of 2024 as he fulfilled the important tasks of his prominent role. He stopped by just a few days after the publication of the OMB audit and a couple of weeks before Biden signed a 10-year bilateral agreement between the US and Ukraine. Luckily, the agreement contained a clause stating that it could end based upon the current US President’s foreign policy.
Marco Rubio enters as the new US SOS as of January 20th. With his arrival, comes a host of instructions to implement Trump’s vision of foreign aid policy—which seems to include adherence to US law. If a breach is determined, it can legally justify an end to funding.
Promises Made but Never Kept
Trump earned many labels during his first term as president. One of the positive ones was his knack to follow through on his promises. His anti-corruption efforts to stave the bleed of US foreign aid funds at the time seem to be supported by various court documents and testimonies by Ukrainian individuals involved in anti-corruption efforts during 2018-2019. All testimonies share stark similarities with Tupitsky’s case, which is the use of Ukrainian lawfare to accuse, persecute, convict and/or sanction individuals into silence.
Among them was Prime Minister of the National Bank of Ukraine, Arbuzov Sergey. Arbuzov reported an elaborate system in which US foreign aid funds were filtered through USAID as early as 2014. This claim was further supported in an article by Afshin Rattansi published in November 2024. Arbuzov explains in his documents the agreements and conditions outlined in US foreign aid disbursements that had no legal bearing on the Ukrainian side to comply. Arbuzov reported in his 2018 testimony, “Thus, none of the requirements set forth in the Ukraine-USA Agreement on the provision of guarantees dated from 14, April 2014 was not complied with. At the same time, assistance was provided in 2015 and 2016, despite systematic failure to comply with the requirements; publicly available information about the theft of funds.”
Kostiantyn Kulyk is a former member of the Prosecutor’s Office in Ukraine who in March 2019, “…officially charged N.Zlochevsky [head of Burisma] with misappropriation of money from the National Bank of Ukraine in the amount equivalent to 100 million US dollars, as well as in the legalization of proceeds from crime, which were committed as part of a criminal organization.” During his investigations, Kulyk identified locked accounting practices of the Ukrainian government where US Aid flows in and are then disbursed through cash transactions—a common practice called layering. He reports, “Such a method of legalization cut off the chain of cash flow, which in a normal case could be tracked by law enforcement agencies or financial monitoring agencies.” Kulyk claims that a series of falsified accusations made against him after filing the case led to the loss of his job, questioned his integrity and created blocks from the argument of his case ever being heard in a Ukrainian court.
The timing of subterfuge reported by Kulyk and the events leading to Trump’s first impeachment in 2020 is uncanny, and has yet to be acted upon through verification on any court. Among the anonymous sources, a riveting opinion of was given about the current Ukrainian administration, “Essentially, the Ze team, after coming to power in 2019, inherited the corrupt nature, adapted to it, and became its beneficiary, which partially explains their betrayal of DT [Donald Trump] in 2019-2020.”
Kulyk also agrees that the unusual events surrounding Trump’s 2019 phone call and 2020 impeachment were intended to preserve the illegal flow of money rather than a personal attack of the 45th President due to quid pro quo. He states, “…there is no elementary logic in this defense structure, since a few months before D. Trump’s call to President of Ukraine V. Zelensky, I had already officially charged N. Zlochevsky. There was no need to put pressure on the President of Ukraine to launch an investigation, which had already been virtually completed and all the revealed circumstances were reflected in the indictment of N.Zlochevsky and his accomplices. In order to conduct an investigation against Biden and other US citizens, it was necessary to decide on the creation of an international investigation team with US law enforcement agencies, since their activities took place in the jurisdictions of the United States and Ukraine.” Yet, shortly after President Trump’s election loss in 2020, Zelenskyy closed all investigations related to Burisma.
Hints of the practices described by Kulyk and Arbuzov continuing under the Biden administration are documented in the GAO audit of 2024. In the audit, it references a lack of systematic reporting existing on the Ukrainian side. Additionally, the funny business that appears to have surrounded the DOD’s accounting adjustments for Ukrainian military aid, seemingly hold a stench of further obfuscation, The practice was only checked by the GAO’s recent claim that the US is not in a state of military readiness, a condition that “trumps” any drawdown authority per the AEC.
Oleg Kulinich is currently imprisoned in Ukraine for alleged treason resulting in the Russian occupation of Ukraine that led to the current conflict. Like Kulyk and Arbuzov, he was also involved in anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine during President Trump’s first term. In an interview provided to Uncensored Beat, Kulinich describes maturation of these schemes that continued under Zelenskyy. He describes the use of crypto to move funds, which are often initiated or received by dual citizens of Ukraine and the US. He states, “…the individuals involved in the described scheme hold state positions in both the U.S. and Ukraine, which has allowed them to strengthen the ‘metastasizing’ of international corruption after [Zelenskyy] coming to power in 2019 and 2020.” Recent US social media testify to these activities, including a recent post regarding Ukrainian generals impacted by the Los Angeles fires.
Working Against the Law
As Zelenskyy continues to advocate for sending additional funds to Ukraine to help defend the Ukrainian people, social media continues to document the misuse of funds by his associates.
Meanwhile Trump, a proclaimed artist in dealmaking, threatens US sanctions against Russia to force Putin’s hand at negotiations to end the fighting and also the US aid supporting it.
However, could Zelenskyy be standing in the way of his country’s peace talks with Russia? According to reports, this may be the case. On September 30, 2022, the Ukrainian president issued a proclamation that was ratified by the Ukrainian Parliament blocking the National Security and Defense Council from negotiating with Russia. There are concerns that Zelenskyy may point to this policy to explain his ineptness to act, and that the lifting of this provision teeters on the approval of the Ukrainian Parliament, per sources. Some believe Zelenskyy disintegrated the different branches of the Ukrainian government into one agency lead by his administration, as mentioned in the article by Uncensored Beat. This can manifest in a stalemate caused by his strong grip on Parliament.
More Than Just a Change in Policy
As he waits in prison, Kulinich has many stories to tell. An example of Zelenskyy’s authoritarianism and persecution, Kulinch offers this assessment of the illegal use of US foreign aid funds, “…the problem of ‘uncovering’ the crimes of the still-functioning vertical of power cannot be limited to a short-term period (for example, the events of 2020-2024), as this mechanism, in my estimation, has been in operation since 1993 in the U.S. and its criminal legacy and continuity have persisted.”
What comes of the 90-day assessment will be interesting. The end to the unabated flow of US dollars to Ukraine seems promising. Hopefully it will also somehow lead to the end of those persecuted Ukrainians who worked to fix and stop the illegal use of foreign aid funds to protect their own country and the pocketbooks of the US citizens.