Ukrainian propaganda war

Background

Young western Ukrainians, 2014. Written on the wall: “Ukraine for Ukrainians.”

With the Brexit movement, there was little widespread popular support for the European Union. Yet the United States and NATO peddled the myth of popular support among Ukrainians to join the EU.

• 2011. Eric Schmidt of Google, and Hillary Clinton adviser Jared Cohen tasked to plan ‘popular movements’ to overthrow the democratically elected President Yanukovych in Ukraine, and the strongman dictator Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

• 1 March 2013. First “Tech Camp” to train far-right Ukrainian neo-Nazis how to organize online the mass-demonstrations against President Yanukovych held inside the US Embassy in Kyiv.

• The “TechCamp” project prepares specialists for information warfare and for the discrediting of state institutions [the Government] using modern media — potential revolutionaries for organizing protests and the toppling of the Government. This project was overseen by under the responsibility of the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey R. Pyatt.
• American instructors explained how social networks and Internet technologies can be used for targeted manipulation of public opinion as well as to activate potential protest to provoke violent unrest on the territory of Ukraine — radicalization of the population, and triggering of infighting. American instructors show examples of successful use of social networks to organize protests in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.

• 13-14 November 2013. Last "Tech Camp" conference held inside the US Embassy in Kyiv. A total of five Tech Camps were held throughout Ukraine with about 300 people trained as operatives.

• 22 February 2014. Yanukovych ousted in illegal coup.

• 28 February 2014. BBC Newsnight report, Neo-Nazi threat in new Ukraine.

• 31 July 2014. Ukrainian Nazi journalist Bogdan Boutkevitch appears on Hromadske TV discussing genocide in Donbas. Boutkevitch says Donetsk:

"is severely overpopulated with people nobody has any use for. Trust me I know what I am saying. If we take, for example, just Donetsk oblast, there are approximately 4 million inhabitants, at least 1.5 million of them are superfluous. We don't need to "understand" Donbass, we need to understand Ukrainian national interests. Donbass must be exploited as a resource, which it is. I don't claim to have a quick solution recipe, but the most important thing that must be done - no matter how cruel it may sound, there is a certain category of people that MUST BE EXTERMINATED.

• August 2014. Ukraine submits an application for observer status to in the Eurasian Economic Union.

• 23 October 2014. NSA tapped the mobile phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

• 27 October 2014. Der Spiegel reports Obama personally approved wiretapping German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone conversations.

• October 2014. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com purchases the Washington Post for less than half of his ongoing contract for cloud service with the CIA. The Institute for Public Accuracy releases a statement condemning the move. Washington Post begins promoting Hillary Clinton as their preferred candidate for President in 2016.

The NATO organization was founded on the solitary premise of collective security to contain Soviet expansion in Europe. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, many questioned the need for it's continued existence against an enemy that no longer existed. Several former Soviet satellite states (East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania, the Czech and Slovak Republics) as well as newly independent former Soviet Republics (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia and Ukraine) wanted EU membership, which of coarse would ultimately mean NATO membership, as well (military alliances exist to protect economic alliances). Russia under Boris Yeltsin wanted EU and NATO membership. The NATO powers that be made clear they had no interest in going out of business, and Russia argued how unfair it was that they should dissolve their defense alliance (the Warsaw Pact) and be thrust into another arms race against a growing NATO, which was swallowing up many of Russia's former military allies.

Leafets with instructions handed out to Soros-backed terrorists in Euromaiden Square, Kiev were identical to those handed out in Tahrir Square, Cairo three years earlier. On the left printed in Arabic, on the right in the Ukrainian language. 117 people were killed by Obama and Soros' terrorists.

But the case of Ukraine was unique. Ukrainian nationalists wanted out of the Russian orbit. But some the territories of Ukraine are inhabited by a significant majority of ethnic Russians, too, who wanted to maintain close ties to Russia. The official US State Department's position under President George Herbert Walker Bush at the time was that the Ukraine should remain a sovereign republic within the Russian Federation. Bush argued as much in a speech written by Condoleezza Rice to the Ukrainian parliament. But the Clinton's took over in early 1993, and caved in to Ukrainian nationalists. In exchange for US recognition of a Ukraine independent of the Russian Federation, Ukraine would give up its nuclear stockpile from the Soviet era, and the US would guarantee Ukraine's security, should the Russians ever invade. The agreement reeked a lot like the assurances Great Britain and France gave Poland at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 that bound them to war with Hitler in 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland.

Edward Snowden warned of such abuse played out in 2016 and 2017: an Executive branch with unlimited. unrestrained power to spy on investigative Committees of Congress, political opponents, and even the Supreme Court.

Like the Treaty of Versailles, the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances negotiated by Bill Clinton lasted exactly 20 years. Unlike Great Britain and France who went to war with Nazi Germany when the agreement was violated, Barack Obama broke the pledge that Clinton had committed the United States to. US/Russian relations have deteriorated ever since. And converting NATO from a purely defensive alliance based on the idea of collective security to a military machine waging aggressive wars - as it had done in Libya - fulfilled many people's worst nightmare. No longer can negotiation and diplomacy be used to keep the peace, as the Obama administration had thrown American promises on the dunghill. Gaddafi ceased terrorism, gave up his WMD, and became an ally, all predicated on accepting American promises, only to be brutally murdered at the hands of Hillary Rodham Clinton and NATO. Ukraine had given up its Soviet-era nuclear stockpile based on assurances given by Bill Clinton, ignored by Barack Obama. Military force now is the only option remaining to remove nuclear weapons from the hands of Kim Jong-il.

Since the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942 it should be clear to anyone, Russia will never allow an aggressive and hostile military force, such as NATO transformed itself into in the Obama era, to ally itself or encamp within the Ukraine.

• 1 November. Snowden leaks reveal Britain's GCHQ and other European spy agencies work together to conduct mass surveillance. The files also make clear that GCHQ played a leading role in advising its European counterparts how to work around laws intended to restrict the surveillance power of intelligence agencies. The Guardian article reports,

It is clear from the Snowden documents that GCHQ has become Europe's intelligence hub in the internet age, and not just because of its success in creating a legally permissive environment for its operations. Britain's location as the European gateway for many transatlantic cables, and its privileged relationship with the NSA has made GCHQ an essential partner for European agencies. The documents show British officials frequently lobbying the NSA on sharing of data with the Europeans and haggling over its security classification so it can be more widely disseminated. In the intelligence world, far more than it managed in diplomacy, Britain has made itself an indispensable bridge between America and Europe's spies.

• 20 November. UK government struck a secret deal with the NSA to share phone, internet, and email records of UK citizens.

• 21 November. Democratically elected government of the Ukraine rejects European Union association agreement in favor of maintaining relations with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). The path to securing a NATO naval base in Sevastopol on the Black Sea is effectively cut off. Soros-sponsored Euromaiden riots erupt.

• 22 November. NSA strategy document reveals the agency's goal to acquire data from "anyone, anytime, anywhere" and expand its already broad legal powers.

2016 presidential election interference

See also: United States Presidential Election, 2016, Trump-Russia collusion hoax, and Ukrainian collusion

George Eliason of Washingtonsblog investigated Crowdstrike's claim that Russian's hacked the DNC. Eliason raised several questions about Atlantic Council senior fellow Dmitri Alperovitch's conflict of interest. When questioned under oath, director James Comey admitted that the FBI had never investigated Crowdstrike's claim of Russians hacking the DNC. The unproven allegation was repeated by fake news mainstream media and incorporated into the Mueller report.

• In the wake of the JAR-16-20296 dated December 29, 2016 about hacking and influencing the 2016 election, the need for real evidence is clear. The joint report adds nothing substantial to the October 7th report. It relies on proofs provided by the cyber security firm Crowdstrike that is clearly not on par with intelligence findings or evidence. At the top of the report is an “as is” statement showing this.
• The difference between Dmitri Alperovitch’s claims which are reflected in JAR-1620296 and this article is that enough evidence is provided to warrant an investigation of specific parties for the DNC hacks. The real story involves specific anti-American actors that need to be investigated for real crimes. For instance, the malware used was an out-dated version just waiting to be found. The one other interesting point is that the Russian malware called Grizzly Steppe is from Ukraine. How did Crowdstrike miss this when it is their business to know?
• The bar for identification set by Crowdstrike has never been able to get beyond words like probably, maybe, could be, or should be, in their attribution. The bar Dimitri Alperovitch set for identifying the hackers involved is that low. Other than asking America to trust them, how many solid facts has Alperovitch provided to back his claim of Russian involvement?
• information from outside intelligence agencies has the value of rumor or unsubstantiated information at best according to policy. Usable intelligence needs to be free from partisan politics and verifiable. Intel agencies noted back in the early 90’s that every private actor in the information game was radically political.
• Alperovitch first gained notice when he was the VP in charge of threat research with McAfee. Asked to comment on Alperovitch’s discovery of Russian hacks on Larry King, John McAfee had this to say. “Based on all of his experience, McAfee does not believe that Russians were behind the hacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC), John Podesta’s emails, and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. As he told RT, “if it looks like the Russians did it, then I can guarantee you it was not the Russians.”
• How does Crowdstrike’s story part with reality? First is the admission that it is probably, maybe, could be Russia hacking the DNC. “Intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin ‘directing’ the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to Wiki Leaks.” The public evidence never goes beyond the word possibility. While never going beyond that or using facts, Crowdstrike insists that it’s Russia behind both Clinton’s and the Ukrainian losses.
• NBC carried the story because one of the partners in Crowdstrike is also a consultant for NBC. According to NBC the story reads like this.”The company, Crowdstrike, was hired by the DNC to investigate the hack and issued a report publicly attributing it to Russian intelligence. One of Crowdstrike’s senior executives is Shawn Henry, a former senior FBI official who consults for NBC News.
• In June, Crowdstrike went public with its findings that two separate Russian intelligence agencies had hacked the DNC. One, which Crowdstrike and other researchers call Cozy Bear, is believed to be linked to Russia’s CIA, known as the FSB. The other, known as Fancy Bear, is believed to be tied to the military intelligence agency, called the GRU.” The information is so certain the level of proof never rises above “believed to be.” According to the December 12th Intercept article “Most importantly, the Post adds that “intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin ‘directing’ the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks.”
• The SBU, Olexander Turchinov, and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense all agree that Crowdstrike is dead wrong in this assessment. Although subtitles aren’t on it, the former Commandant of Ukrainian Army Headquarters thanks God Russia never invaded or Ukraine would have been in deep trouble. How could Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike be this wrong on easily checked detail and still get this much media attention?
• Crowdstrike CEO Dmitri Alperovitch story about Russian hacks that cost Hillary Clinton the election was broadsided by the SBU (Ukrainian Intelligence and Security) in Ukraine. If Dimitri Alperovitch is working for Ukrainian Intelligence and is providing intelligence to 17 US Intelligence Agencies is it a conflict of interest?

Fancy Bear

Main article: Fancy Bear

CrowdStrike

CrowdStrike is an Irvine, California cyber security company founded in 2011. Crowdstrike was founded by Dimitry Alperovitch, a Ukrainian oligarch and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Another owner and senior manager of Crowdstrike is a former senior FBI man Shawn Henry, who was promoted by Robert Mueller to be the FBI's Head of Cyber Security in the 2000s.

Crowdstrike is funded by Google, the arms industry, NATO, the US Military, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and another Ukrainian oligarch who donated $10 million to the Clinton Foundation named Victor Pinchuk. Pichuk hosted the September 2013 confabulation in Yalta, Crimea attended by Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Tony Blair to discuss how Ukraine's assets would be carved up after the forthcoming Ukrainian coup.

Russian hacking claims of DNC servers in the Spring of 2016 rely entirely on a report by CrowdStrike. Despite repeated requests from the FBI, Crowdstrike and the DNC refused to turn over evidence. The Obama administration never examined the DNC servers to determine if indeed they were hacked, or attempted to identify who the hacker might have been. On July 25, 2019, President Trump requested President Zelensky of Ukraine to assist in recovering evidence from Crowdstrike, which contracts with the Ukrainian military.

• According to journalist and DNC activist Andrea Chalupa on her Facebook page “After Chalupa sent the email to Miranda (which mentions that she had invited this reporter to a meeting with Ukrainian journalists in Washington), it triggered high-level concerns within the DNC, given the sensitive nature of her work. “That’s when we knew it was the Russians,” said a Democratic Party source who has been directly involved in the internal probe into the hacked emails. In order to stem the damage, the source said, “we told her to stop her research.”” July 25, 2016
• If she was that close to the investigation Crowdstrike did how credible is she? Her sister Alexandra was named one of 16 people that shaped the election by Yahoo news. The DNC hacking investigation done by Crowdstrike concluded hacking was done by Russian actors based on the work done by Alexandra Chalupa? That is the conclusion of her sister Andrea Chalupa and obviously enough for Crowdstrike to make the Russian government connection.
• How close is Dimitri Alperovitch to DNC officials? Close enough professionally he should have stepped down from an investigation that had the chance of throwing a presidential election in a new direction. According to Esquire.com, Alperovitch has vetted speeches for Hillary Clinton about cyber security issues in the past. Because of his work on the Sony hack, President Barrack Obama personally called and said the measures taken were directly because of his work.
• Alperovitch’s relationships with the Chalupas, radical groups, think tanks, Ukrainian propagandists, and Ukrainian state supported hackers [show a conflict of interest]. When it all adds up and you see it together, we have found a Russian that tried hard to influence the outcome of the US presidential election in 2016.

OUN

The Chalupas are not Democrat or Republican. They are OUNb. The OUNb worked hard to start a war between the US and Russia for the last 50 years. According to the Ukrainian Weekly in a rare open statement of their existence in 2011, “Other statements were issued in the Ukrainian language by the leadership of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (B) and the International Conference in Support of Ukraine. The OUN (Bandera wing) called for”... What is OUNb Bandera? They follow the same political policy and platform that was developed in the 1930s by Stepan Bandera. When these people go to a Holocaust memorial they are celebrating both the dead and the OUNb SS that killed. There is no getting around this fact. The OUNb have no concept of democratic values and want an authoritarian fascism.

Alexandra Chalupa- According to the Ukrainian Weekly,

… “The effort, known as Digital Miadan, gained momentum following the initial Twitter storms. Leading the effort were: Lara Chelak, Andrea Chalupa, Alexandra Chalupa, Constatin Kostenko and others.” The Digital Maidan was also how they raised money for the coup. This was how the Ukrainian emigres bought the bullets that were used on Euromaidan. Ukraine’s chubby nazi, Dima Yarosh stated openly he was taking money from the Ukrainian emigres during Euromaidan and Pravy Sektor still fundraises openly in North America. The “Sniper Massacre” on the Maidan in Ukraine by Dr. Ivan Katchanovski, University of Ottowa shows clearly detailed evidence how the massacre happened. It has Pravy Sektor confessions that show who created the “heavenly hundred. Their admitted involvement as leaders of Digital Maidan by both Chalupas is a clear violation of the Neutrality Act and has up to a 25 year prison sentence attached to it because it ended in a coup.

Andrea Chalupa-2014, in a Huff Post article Sept. 1 2016, Andrea Chalupa described Sviatoslav Yurash as one of Ukraine's important “dreamers.” He is a young activist that founded Euromaidan Press. Beyond the gushing glow what she doesn't say is who he actually is. Sviatoslav Yurash was Dmitri Yarosh's spokesman just after Maidan. He is a hardcore Ukrainian nationalist and was rewarded with the Deputy Director position for the UWC (Ukrainian World Congress) in Kiev.

In January, 2014 when he showed up at the Maidan protests he was 17 years old. He became the foreign language media representative for Vitali Klitschko, Arseni Yatsenyuk, and Oleh Tyahnybok. All press enquiries went through Yurash. To meet Dimitri Yurash you had to go through Sviatoslav Yurash as a Macleans reporter found out.

At 18 years old, Sviatoslav Yurash became the spokesman for Ministry of Defense of Ukraine under Andrei Paruby. He was Dimitri Yarosh's spokesman and can be seen either behind Yarosh on videos at press conferences or speaking ahead of him to reporters. From January 2014 onward, to speak to Dimitri Yarosh, you set up an appointment with Yurash.

Andrea Chalupa has worked with Yurash's Euromaidan Press which is associated with Informnapalm.org and supplies the state level hackers for Ukraine.

Irene Chalupa- Another involved Chalupa we need to cover to do the story justice is Irene Chalupa. From her bio– Irena Chalupa is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council's Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center. She is also a senior correspondent at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), where she has worked for more than twenty years. Ms. Chalupa previously served as an editor for the Atlantic Council, where she covered Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Irena Chalupa is also the news anchor for Ukraine's propaganda channel org She is also a Ukrainian emigre leader.

According to Robert Parry's article At the forefront of people that would have taken senior positions in a Clinton administration and especially in foreign policy are the Atlantic Council. Their main goal is still a major confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia.

The Atlantic Council is the think tank associated and supported by the CEEC (Central and Eastern European Coalition). The CEEC has only one goal which is war with Russia. Their question to candidates looking for their support in the election was “Are you willing to go to war with Russia?” Hillary Clinton has received their unqualified support throughout the campaign.

The Chalupa sisters

What does any of this have to do with Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? Since the Atlantic Council would have taken senior cabinet and policy positions, his own fellowship status at the Atlantic Council and relationship with Irene Chalupa creates a definite conflict of interest for Crowdstrike's investigation. Trump's campaign was gaining ground and Clinton needed a boost. Had she won, would he have been in charge of the CIA, NSA, or Homeland Security?

When you put someone that has so much to gain in charge of an investigation that could change an election, that is a conflict of interest. If the think tank is linked heavily to groups that want war with Russia like the Atlantic Council and the CEEC, it opens up criminal conspiracy.

If the person in charge of the investigation is a fellow at the think tank that wants a major conflict with Russia it is a definite conflict of interest. Both the Atlantic Council and clients stood to gain Cabinet and Policy positions based on how the result of his work affects the election. It clouds the results of the investigation. In Dmitri Alperovitch's case, he found the perpetrator before he was positive there was a crime.

Ukrainian intelligence

Alperovitch's relationship with Andrea Chalupa's efforts and Ukrainian intelligence groups is where things really heat up. Noted above she works with Euromaidanpress.com and Informnapalm.org which is the outlet for Ukrainian state-sponsored hackers.

Alperovitch and Fancy Bear tweet each other.

When you look at Dimitri Alperovitch's twitter relationships, you have to ask why the CEO of a $150 million company like Crowdstrike follows Ukrainian InformNapalm and its hackers individually. There is a mutual relationship. When you add up his work for the OUNb, Ukraine, support for Ukraine's Intelligence, and to the hackers it needs to be investigated to see if Ukraine is conspiring against the US government. Crowdstrike is also following their hack of a Russian government official after the DNC hack. It closely resembles the same method used with the DNC because it was an email hack.

Crowdstrike's product line includes Falcon Host, Falcon Intelligence, Falcon Overwatch and Falcon DNS. Is it possible the hackers in Falcons Flame are another service Crowdstrike offers?

In an interview with Euromaidanpress these hackers say they have no need for the CIA. They consider the CIA amateurish. They also say they are not part of the Ukrainian military Cyberalliance is a quasi-organization with the participation of several groups – RUH8, Trinity, Falcon Flames, Cyberhunta. There are structures affiliated to the hackers – the Myrotvorets site, Informnapalm analytical agency.”

Although this profile says Virginia, tweets are from the Sofia, Bulgaria time zone and he writes in Russian. Another curiosity considering the Fancy Bear source code is in Russian. This image shows Crowdstrike in their network. Crowdstrike is part of Ukrainian nationalist hacker network. In the image it shows a network diagram of Crowdstrike following the Surkov leaks. The network communication goes through a secondary source.

Although OSINT Academy sounds fairly innocuous, it’s the official twitter account for Ukraine’s Ministry of Information head Dimitri Zolotukin. It is also Ukrainian Intelligence. The Ministry of Information started the Peacekeeper or Myrotvorets website that geolocates journalists and other people for assassination. If you disagree with OUNb politics, you could be on the list.

Should someone tell Dimitri Alperovitch that Gerashchenko, who is now in charge of Peacekeeper recently threatened president-elect Donald Trump that he would put him on his “Peacemaker” site as a target? The same has been done with Silvio Berscaloni in the past.

Trying not to be obvious, the Head of Ukraine's Information Ministry (UA Intelligence) tweeted something interesting that ties Alperovitch and Crowdstrike to the Ukrainian Intelligence hackers and the Information Ministry even tighter. This single tweet on a network chart shows that out of all the Ukrainian Ministry of Information Minister's following, he only wanted the 3 hacking groups associated with both him and Alperovitch to get the tweet. Alperovitch's story was received and not retweeted or shared. If this was just Alperovitch's victory, it was a victory for Ukraine. It would be shared heavily. If it was a victory for the hacking squad, it would be smart to keep it to themselves and not draw unwanted attention.

These same hackers are associated with Alexandra, Andrea, and Irene Chalupa through the portals and organizations they work with through their OUNb. The hackers are funded and directed by or through the same OUNb channels that Alperovitch is working for and with to promote the story of Russian hacking.

When you look at the image for the hacking group in the euromaidanpress article, one of the hackers identifies themselves as one of Dimitri Yarosh's Pravy Sektor members by the Pravy Sektor sweatshirt they have on. Noted above, Pravy Sektor admitted to killing the people at the Maidan protest and sparked the coup.

Going further with the linked Euromaidanpress article the hackers say "Let’s understand that Ukrainian hackers and Russian hackers once constituted a single very powerful group. Ukrainian hackers have a rather high level of work. So the help of the USA… I don’t know, why would we need it? We have all the talent and special means for this. And I don’t think that the USA or any NATO country would make such sharp movements in international politics.”

What sharp movements in international politics have been made lately? Let me spell it out for the 17 US Intelligence Agencies so there is no confusion. These state sponsored, Russian language hackers in Eastern European time zones have shown with the Surkov hack they have the tools and experience to hack states that are looking out for it. They are also laughing at US intel efforts.

The hackers also made it clear that they will do anything to serve Ukraine. Starting a war between Russia and the USA is the one way they could serve Ukraine best, and hurt Russia worst. Given those facts, if the DNC hack was according to the criteria given by Alperovitch, both he and these hackers need to be investigated.

According to the Esquire interview “Alperovitch was deeply frustrated: He thought the government should tell the world what it knew. There is, of course, an element of the personal in his battle cry. “A lot of people who are born here don’t appreciate the freedoms we have, the opportunities we have, because they’ve never had it any other way,” he told me. “I have.”

While I agree patriotism is a great thing, confusing it with this kind of nationalism is not. Alperovitch seems to think by serving OUNb Ukraine's interests and delivering a conflict with Russia that is against American interests, he's a patriot. He isn't serving US interests. He's definitely a Ukrainian patriot. Maybe he should move to Ukraine.

The evidence presented deserves investigation because it looks like the case for conflict of interest is the least Dimitri Alperovitch should look forward to. If these hackers are the real Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, they really did make sharp movements in international politics. By pawning it off on Russia, they made a worldwide embarrassment of an outgoing President of the United States and made the President Elect the suspect of rumor.

Trump impeachment

See also: Trump impeachment

How the Obama White House engaged Ukraine to give Russia collusion narrative an early boost, by John Solomon

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a Banderist, swore under oath that he gave instructions countermanding the President's policies. The Joint Chiefs of Staff have not disciplined Vindman.

• In January 2016 the Obama White House summoned Ukrainian authorities to Washington. The meeting brought some of Ukraine’s top corruption prosecutors and investigators face to face with [Eric Ciaramella] and members of former President Obama’s National Security Council (NSC), FBI, State Department and Department of Justice (DOJ). Ukrainian participants said it didn’t take long to realize the Americans’ objectives included two politically hot investigations: one involving Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and one involving Paul Manafort's lobbying firm, linked closely to then-candidate Trump.

• U.S. officials “kept talking about how important it was that all of our anti-corruption efforts be united,” said Andrii Telizhenko, then a political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington tasked with organizing the meeting.
• Telizhenko said U.S. officials said that they had an interest in reviving a closed 2014 investigation into payments to U.S. figures from Ukraine’s Russia-backed Party of Regions. That 2014 investigation was focused on Manafort. The FBI closed the case without charging Manafort.
• DOJ officials asking investigators from Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) if they could help find new evidence about the Party of Regions’ payments and its dealings with Americans. “It was definitely the case that led to the charges against Manafort and the leak to U.S. media during the 2016 election,” Telizhenko said.
• Nazar Kholodnytskyy, Ukraine’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor, said he soon saw evidence in Ukraine of political meddling in the U.S. election. Kholodnytskyy said the key evidence against Manafort — a ledger showing payments from the Party of Regions — was known to Ukrainian authorities since 2014 but was suddenly released in May 2016 by the NABU, after Manafort was named Trump’s campaign chairman: “Somebody kept this black ledger secret for two years and then showed it to the public and the U.S. media. It was extremely suspicious.” Kholodnytskyy said he explicitly instructed NABU investigators who were working with American authorities not to share the ledger with the media. “I ordered the detectives to give nothing to the mass media considering this case. Instead, they had broken my order and published themselves these one or two pages of this black ledger regarding Paul Manafort. For me it was the first call that something was going wrong and that there is some external influence in this case. And there is some other interests in this case not in the interest of the investigation and a fair trial.”
• Kostiantyn Kulyk, deputy head of the Ukraine prosecutor general’s international affairs office, said that, shortly after Ukrainian authorities returned from the Washington meeting, there was a clear message about helping the Americans with the Party of the Regions case. “Yes, there was a lot of talking about needing help and then the ledger just appeared in public.” Kulyk said Ukrainian authorities had evidence that other Western figures, such as former Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig, also received money from Yanukovych’s party. But the Americans weren’t interested: “They just discussed Manafort. This was all and only what they wanted. Nobody else.”
• Manafort joined Trump’s campaign on March 29, 2016, and then was promoted to campaign chairman on May 19, 2016. NABU leaked the existence of the ledgers on May 29, 2016. Later that summer, it told U.S. media the ledgers showed payments to Manafort, a revelation that forced him to resign from the Trump campaign in August 2016.
• A Ukrainian court in December concluded NABU’s release of the ledger was an illegal attempt to influence the U.S. election. And a member of Ukraine’s parliament has released a recording of a NABU official saying the agency released the ledger to help Hillary Clinton.
• The other case raised at the January 2016 meeting involved Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company under investigation in Ukraine for improper foreign transfers of money. At the time, Burisma allegedly was paying then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter as both a board member and a consultant. More than $3 million flowed from Ukraine to Rosemont Seneca, Hunter Biden and Devon Archer's firm in 2014-15, bank records show.
• U.S. officials told the Ukrainians they would prefer that Kiev drop the Burisma probe and allow the FBI to take it over. The Ukrainians did not agree. But then Joe Biden pressured Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire Victor Shokin, Ukraine’s chief prosecutor in March 2016. The Burisma case was transferred to NABU, then shut down.
• The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington confirmed that the Obama administration requested the meetings in January 2016, but embassy representatives attended only some of the sessions. "Unfortunately, the Embassy of Ukraine in Washington, D.C., was not invited to join the DOJ and other law enforcement-sector meetings."
• Telizhenko’s claim that the DOJ reopened its Manafort probe as the 2016 election ramped up is supported by the DOJ’s own documents, including communications involving Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr, his wife, Nellie Ohr, and ex-British spy Christopher Steele. Nellie Ohr and Steele worked in 2016 for Fusion GPS, that was hired by Clinton’s campaign and DNC to find dirt on Trump. Steele wrote the famous dossier for Fusion that the FBI used to gain a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. Nellie Ohr admitted to Congress that she routed Russia dirt on Trump from Fusion to the DOJ through her husband Bruce during the election.
• DOJ emails show Nellie Ohr on May 30, 2016, directly alerted her husband Bruce and two DOJ prosecutors to the discovery of the “Black Ledger” files that led to Manafort’s prosecution. “Reported Trove of documents on Ukrainian Party of Regions’ Black Cashbox,” Nellie Ohr wrote to her husband and federal prosecutors Lisa Holtyn and Joseph Wheatley, attaching a news article on the announcement of NABU’s release of the documents.

• Bruce Ohr and Steele worked on their own effort to get dirt on Manafort from a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, who had a soured business relationship with Manafort. Deripaska was “almost ready to talk” to U.S. government officials regarding the money that “Manafort stole,” Bruce Ohr wrote in notes from his conversations with Steele.
• The efforts eventually led to a September 2016 meeting in which Andrew McCabe asked Deripaska if he could help prove Manafort was helping Trump collude with Russia. Deripaska laughed off the notion as preposterous.

• Politico reported that the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington assisted Clinton’s campaign through Alexandra Chalupa, a DNC contractor. The Ukrainian Embassy acknowledges it got requests for assistance from Chalupa to find dirt on Manafort.

Attempted cover-up: 2019 impeachment allegations

Special Counsel Robert Mueller colluding with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych is considered a Putin stooge by many Deep Staters.

Three days before the call, The Washington Post published an article entitle As vice president, Biden said Ukraine should increase gas production. Then his son got a job with a Ukrainian gas company. Zelensky is the first to bring up the name of Giuliani, and of an investigation. Trumps mentions "a lot of people are talking about it" and "a lot of people want to know". Trump refers to the Mueller investigation which just ended, and Bill Barr's ongoing investigation into the origins of Russiagate.

The conversation took place the day after Robert Mueller testified to congress. The regime installed by the Obama administration in 2014 was defeated in parliamentary elections four days earlier. President Trump was calling President Zelenskyy to congratulate him on the victory and map out cooperation fighting corruption and international criminal conspiracies on both sides of the Atlantic.

The President: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike… I guess you have one of your wealthy people… The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you’re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it’s very important that you do it if that’s possible.

President Zelenskyy: Yes it is very important for me and everything that you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President, it is very important and we are open for any future cooperation. We are ready to open a new page on cooperation in relations between the United States and Ukraine. For that purpose, I just recalled our ambassador from United States and he will be replaced by a very competent and very experienced ambassador who will work hard on making sure that our two nations are getting closer. I would also like and hope to see him having your trust and your confidence and have personal relations with you so we can cooperate even more so. I will personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with Mr. Giuliani just recently and we are hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody but friends around us. I will make sure that I surround myself with the best and most experienced people. I also wanted to tell you that we are friends. We are great friends and you Mr. President have friends in our country so we can continue our strategic partnership. I also plan to surround myself with great people and in addition to that investigation, I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly. That I can assure you.
The President: Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that’s really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that she stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me.
President Zelenskyy: I wanted to tell you about the prosecutor. First of all I understand and I'm knowledgeable about the situation. Since we have won the absolute majority in our Parliament, the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person, my candidate, who will be approved by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue. The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case. On top of that, I would kindly ask you if you have any additional information that you can provide to us, it would be very helpful for the investigation to make sure that we administer justice in our country with regard to the Ambassador to the United States from Ukraine as far I as I recall her name was Ivanovich. It was great that you were the first one who told me that she was a bad ambassador because I agree with you 100%. Her attitude towards me was far from the best as she admired the previous President and she was on his side. She would not accept me as a new President well enough.

The President: Well, she's going to go through some things. I will have Mr. Giuliani to give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. I'm sure you will figure it out. I heard the prosecutor was treated very badly and he was a very fair prosecutor so good luck with everything.

The New York Post called Trump-Ukraine a lousy sequel to Trump-Russia.

Eric Ciaramella

Eric Ciaramella (middle right) across from Ukrainian officials in a meeting at the White House, flanked by Biden security adviser Michael Carpenter and Ciaramella's NSC colleague Liz Zentos.

The whistleblower alleged “The call [with Ukraine] did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective”. A “White House official” is quoted by the whistleblower as objecting to the storage of the MEMCON transcript of President Trump's call with Zelenskyy in a secure storage system in the NSC. This was wrong (a cover up) because it contained “nothing remotely sensitive”.

The whistleblower's allegation is false. The President's call with Zelenskyy contained references to both President Trump's and the Ukrainian President's opinions on multiple European countries and leaders, especially Germany and France, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, as well as sanctions policy towards Russia.

When originally classified, the transcript was set at the SECRET, Original Classification Authority (ORCON), No Foreign Distribution (NOFORN) level. That classification was set because the diplomatic view of the United States and the President towards other countries and leaders can “cause serious damage to national security” if disclosed in an unauthorized way. In this case, it could also damage the national security of Ukraine, too.

James Comey, for example, was referred by the Inspector General to the Department of Justice for potential criminal prosecution because one of his memos contained a tiny amount of similar information: the President's views on the relative importance of two countries (one of which was Russia) and when to return their calls. Comey's content was far milder and only 6 words, but even it was classified at the CONFIDENTIAL level, i.e. would cause “damage to national security”. President Trump's transcript was SECRET because it had far more information and far stronger views about a key US foreign policy, Russia sanctions. A SECRET classification was clearly warranted, and the call did contain sensitive national security information. The whistleblower and their White House official mole were wrong, or lying when they said the transcript “did not contain anything remotely sensitive”.

Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice confirmed that the Obama administration moved President Obama's transcripts of conversations with foreign leaders onto the same top-secret server where the Trump administration stored President Trump's phone calls.

Russia-Ukraine war

See also: Russia-Ukraine war

See also

• Ukrainian collusion timeline