Clinton Foundation Received $10 Million from Ukrainian Oligarch - Russia Insider

Between 2009 and 2013, including when Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state, the Clinton Foundation received at least $8.6 million from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, according to that foundation, which is based in Kiev, Ukraine. It was created by Mr. Pinchuk, whose fortune stems from a pipe-making company. He served two terms as an elected member of the Ukrainian Parliament and is a proponent of closer ties between Ukraine and the European Union.

In 2008, Mr. Pinchuk made a five-year, $29 million commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative, a wing of the foundation that coordinates charitable projects and funding for them but doesn’t handle the money. The pledge was to fund a program to train future Ukrainian leaders and professionals “to modernize Ukraine,” according to the Clinton Foundation. Several alumni are current members of the Ukrainian Parliament. Actual donations so far amount to only $1.8 million, a Pinchuk foundation spokesman said, citing the impact of the 2008 financial crisis.

The Pinchuk foundation said its donations were intended to help to make Ukraine “a successful, free, modern country based on European values.” It said that if Mr. Pinchuk was lobbying the State Department about Ukraine, “this cannot be seen as anything but a good thing.”

Complete story at - Clinton Foundation Received $10 Million from Ukrainian Oligarch - Russia Insider

Ukraine crisis takes its toll on country’s oligarchs | beyondbrics

Ukraine’s billionaires are losing their cash, especially those with significant assets in the Donbas, an area that has become a battlefield between pro-Russian rebels and units loyal to Kiev. According to Forbes’ 2015 billionaires list, Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man, has lost as much as $5.8bn over the past year.

The mining, steel-making, energy and heavy engineering units of Akhmetov’s SCM Group have been forced to halt operations or reduce their capacity in territories controlled by separatists or near the front line. The Group’s media, telecommunications and banking businesses are also feeling the effects of the rebellion.

On Friday, SCM’s power generator and coal producer DTEK posted a full-year net loss of 19bn hryvnia ($850m) in 2014, after a net profit of 3bn hryvnia in the previous year. “Military operations and difficult macroeconomic situation in Ukraine have resulted in a significant decrease in the net profit of DTEK’s companies,” Piotr Fokow, finance director, said in a statement.

DTEK’s mines and power plants have been damaged by shelling, by pro-Kiev forces and by pro-Russian separatists; they have experienced power blackouts and other logistical problems.

Two of DTEK’s producers of anthracite, Rovenkianthracite and Sverdlovanthracite, have been running at between a quarter and a third of capacity, mainly due to the destruction of railway infrastructure. In peacetime, they produce up to 40,000 tonnes of coal a day; now, they are managing just 8,000 tonnes.

Complete story at - Ukraine crisis takes its toll on country’s oligarchs | beyondbrics

Fort Russ: Kolomoisky declares war on Poroshenko

Blogger/Media Expert Anatoly Sharij

Igor Valerevich Kolomoisky is in a difficult situation. And Petro Poroshenko, whose surrounding frankly missed the swelling abscess in the form of a powerful opposition, is already faced with a blatant mud-slinging through incessant leaks in oligarch-controlled media.

About the effectiveness of such leaks, no matter how immoral and ridiculous, ask Oleg Lyashko, who lost a huge percentage of potential voters in a targeted bombardment from Channel 1+1.

It becomes quite obvious that as a result of negotiations around the coalition, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, no doubt - a henchman of Igor Valerievich, will not receive positions expected by Kolomoisky.

This situation is clearly not acceptable to the sponsor of Arseniy Petrovych and "Popular Front."

Privat Group, which is actually in bankruptcy, is not receiving refinancing of Privat Bank from the NBU (National Bank of Ukraine), as it was done during the time of Cubiv, when already lost property was used as a collateral, have not been able to adequately profit from the war, lost assets in Crimea and the East, and has no options for maneuver.

It has to strike. And the target is the President, who controls NBU (through Gontareva), which is a barrier to the implementation of lobbying decisions in favor of Privat. If the Cabinet will not belong to Kolomoisky, the oligarch will lose.

Complete story at - Fort Russ: Kolomoisky declares war on Poroshenko

ClubOrlov: Twilight of the Oligarchs

Last week I published a brave prediction:

I see the political elites and their oligarch puppet-masters becoming endangered species in the United States before too long as the populace, including their own bodyguards, turns against them.

As usual, I made no attempt to specify what I mean by “before too long” because making predictions as to timing is a fool's game. And, as usual, I got a flurry of emails expressing a wide range of rationalizations but all adding up to the same sentiment: “not any time soon.”

Some people thought that the populace, consisting as it does of zombified overfed clowns addicted to Facebook and internet porn is unlikely to stage the revolution. Others thought that the oligarchy will manage to manipulate financial markets, destroy one country after another in order to drain all remaining wealth out of the world and consume it, and by so doing manage to placate the populace with bread and circuses, well into the future. The bodyguards are unlikely to rebel, some said, because they are so well paid.

Getting back to basics, it is a fairly obvious and increasingly well-recognized fact that the American empire, the empire of military bases, the Federal Reserve, the IMF and the World Bank, is on its way out. And it is a well-known fact about empires that when they fail those who held positions of power and privilege within them are quickly recycled into punching bags and pincushions. Oddly, nobody mentioned any of the mechanisms by which this transformation tends to take place, so I thought I'd mention them briefly.

First, when empires start falling apart, this is manifested in a few ways. One is loss of control over the periphery, as a shrinking pool of resources is used to shore up the center. Another is loss of control over the use of violence, as a wide variety of violent entrepreneurs enter the scene and the center is forced to play them against each other and make deals with them. And as the unraveling progresses, the violent entrepreneurs develop agendas of their own, which, inevitably, involve having the cooperation flow the other way: instead of cooperating with those formerly in charge, they demand that those formerly in charge start cooperating with them. And it is here that the scene turns bloody.

Complete story at - ClubOrlov: Twilight of the Oligarchs

Ukraine’s Thieves and Nazis: From ‘Russian Propaganda’ to Parliament | New Eastern Outlook

With the final votes being counted in Ukraine’s parliamentary elections, early results show an unsurprisingly strong showing for the country’s oligarchs, while neo-Nazi candidates score significant victories of their own.

Though the democratic character of the elections is certainly in doubt, the inescapable reality is that the new government in Kiev is going to be even more aggressive, even more radical, and even more dangerous, as the political character of the Verkohvna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) becomes ever more reactionary. Not only will this development have negative repercussions for the people of Donetsk and Lugansk, as they likely will now be facing a renewed assault from a belligerent government looking to assert itself before the eyes of the Ukrainian electorate, it will also further entrench the anti-Russian posture of Kiev, which will now have to contend with even more right wing pressure to eschew negotiations and pragmatism with Russia, in favor of a destructive and unwinnable strategy of continued antagonism and provocation.

In examining closely some of the election’s higher profile winners, one sees a disconcerting trend that goes far beyond simply neo-Nazi ideology; this election has legitimized the rule of criminal oligarchs and the factions and private armies they control, while also entrenching violent, and quite often criminal, individuals and tendencies within the newly constituted government. In effect, the fascist fanatics of Maidan now have a new home in the Rada.

Tallying the Votes, Assessing the Damage

Although the final vote count has yet to be made official, preliminary results show that the two dominant factions and leaders within the Ukrainian government, President Poroshenko and his bloc and Arseniy Yatsenyuk and his “People’s Front,” both handpicked by the United States, each garnered roughly 21 percent of the vote, making them the clear winners in the election. Of course, it is clear that the losers are the people of Ukraine, many of whom demonstrated on Maidan against the corruption of an oligarch-controlled government, only to watch new, “pro-Western” corrupt oligarchs usurp control of the country with the backing of powerful Western interests.

Complete story at - Ukraine’s Thieves and Nazis: From ‘Russian Propaganda’ to Parliament | New Eastern Outlook