Great documentary on Ukraine - not the war

[Craig234]

There's helpful info to understand on the background in Ukraine, leading up to the war. As has been said, 'Since the fall of the USSR, Ukraine hasn't had a leader, just thieves who steal its wealth'. Skipping some of that history, we got to a pro-Russian, Putin-supported president who robbed the country blind until a revolution drove him from office, and he fled to Moscow in 2014.

However, the president that replaced him was a billionaire also recognized for corruption. One Ukrainian said 'it's worse than before'. Remember the big issue that happened when the Obama administration had Joe Biden directly involved to pressure Ukraine to remove a corrupt prosecutor.

So, you might ask, how does a comedian get elected president? By being a comedian who played the Ukrainian president and ran on a platform of ending the corruption. And he did, starting in 2019. And he immediately ran into Putin buddy trump, who refused Zelensky's request to meet, to show solidarity between the countries, and walked into trump's scheme to extort lies about Biden from Ukraine, illegally withholding military aid, resulting in trump's impeachment.

We hear a lot in the news about corruption and 'Russian oligarchs' and so on. This 2018 documentary is great for telling that story - the depth of corruption to that point in Ukraine, the intimate role of Russian oligarchs who viewed Ukraine as their property, why Putin was strongly opposed to Ukraine ending its corruption and how Zelensky's election can be seen leading to Putin's motivations for this war.

This documentary names names, meets a criminal oligarch, you'll be shocked to hear the oligarchs were 'friends of trump' for years. It makes clear the part of the tragedy that Ukraine was finally getting to have a country without the corruption as of 2019 before this war. It tells a lot of the story that isn't clear from current events. Of course Zelensky isn't mentioned since it's from 2018.

 

[MamboDervish]

There's helpful info to understand on the background in Ukraine, leading up to the war. As has been said, 'Since the fall of the USSR, Ukraine hasn't had a leader, just thieves who steal its wealth'. Skipping some of that history, we got to a pro-Russian, Putin-supported president who robbed the country blind until a revolution drove him from office, and he fled to Moscow in 2014.

However, the president that replaced him was a billionaire also recognized for corruption. One Ukrainian said 'it's worse than before'. Remember the big issue that happened when the Obama administration had Joe Biden directly involved to pressure Ukraine to remove a corrupt prosecutor.

So, you might ask, how does a comedian get elected president? By being a comedian who played the Ukrainian president and ran on a platform of ending the corruption. And he did, starting in 2019. And he immediately ran into Putin buddy trump, who refused Zelensky's request to meet, to show solidarity between the countries, and walked into trump's scheme to extort lies about Biden from Ukraine, illegally withholding military aid, resulting in trump's impeachment.

We hear a lot in the news about corruption and 'Russian oligarchs' and so on. This 2018 documentary is great for telling that story - the depth of corruption to that point in Ukraine, the intimate role of Russian oligarchs who viewed Ukraine as their property, why Putin was strongly opposed to Ukraine ending its corruption and how Zelensky's election can be seen leading to Putin's motivations for this war.

This documentary names names, meets a criminal oligarch, you'll be shocked to hear the oligarchs were 'friends of trump' for years. It makes clear the part of the tragedy that Ukraine was finally getting to have a country without the corruption as of 2019 before this war. It tells a lot of the story that isn't clear from current events. Of course Zelensky isn't mentioned since it's from 2018.

Fun stuff, and well worth the watch. Of course, this is just the Ukrainian tip of the iceberg, as we've known about Russian oligarch corruption throughout the world, almost since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Big money buys high powered accountants, high powered bankers, and high powered attorneys, so the world is rife with schemes to hide and safeguard illegal assets.

I was tickled by one brilliant and funny part of the documentary where the journalist was telling the tale of his tense interview meeting. As soon as he was offered an envelope, he accepted it. Suddenly this put everyone at ease, facilitating his inquiries. Then, after he had all the information he thought he could get, he just put the envelope down on the table and left. I can just imagine the looks on the faces of criminals.

 

[Antiwar]

People that spend their time here can't 'waste' their time on long videos, dontcha know.

I'm tempted to post the Zembla video about T**** and Russian oligarchs, again.

 

[Craig234]

Fun stuff, and well worth the watch. Of course, this is just the Ukrainian tip of the iceberg, as we've known about Russian oligarch corruption throughout the world, almost since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Big money buys high powered accountants, high powered bankers, and high powered attorneys, so the world is rife with schemes to hide and safeguard illegal assets.

I was tickled by one brilliant and funny part of the documentary where the journalist was telling the tale of his tense interview meeting. As soon as he was offered an envelope, he accepted it. Suddenly this put everyone at ease, facilitating his inquiries. Then, after he had all the information he thought he could get, he just put the envelope down on the table and left. I can just imagine the looks on the faces of criminals.

Glad you enjoyed it. You might be the only person that watched unfortunately.

Ya, that was quite the awkward and perhaps dangerous situation for the journalist, with those different understandings that they thought they could pay them off. And the documentary shows how hard it is tracking the money.