Max Blumenthal, founder and editor-in-chief of The Grayzone, addressed the UN Security Council on the role of US military aid to Ukraine in escalating the conflict with Russia and the real motives behind Washington’s support for Kiev’s proxy war.
The Biden Administration knows that “it is escalating a proxy war against the world’s largest nuclear Power,” Blumenthal said. “Why are we tempting nuclear annihilation by flooding Ukraine with advanced weapons and sabotaging negotiations at every turn?” For those US officials who personally benefit financially, “a negotiated settlement to this territorial dispute means an end to the cash cow of close to $150 billion in US aid to Ukraine.”
Last Thursday, Blumenthal gave a presentation to the UN Security Council. The presentation was prepared with the help of Wyatt Reed, Alex Rubinstein and Anya Parampil.
Wyatt has first-hand experience with the subject of the presentation, Blumenthal explained, “as a journalist whose hotel in Donetsk was targeted with a US-made howitzer by the Ukrainian military in October 2022. He was 100 meters away when the strike hit, and was nearly killed.”
On 28 June, the US Pentagon announced plans to send an additional $500 million worth of military aid to Ukraine. A little over two weeks earlier, on 12 June, Kiev “lost” 16 US-made armoured vehicles. “So, what did the Pentagon do? It simply passed that bill down to average US taxpayers like myself, charging us another $325 million to replace Ukraine’s squandered military stock,” Blumenthal said.
“The US policy [ ] – which sees Washington prioritise unrestrained funding for a proxy war with a nuclear power in a foreign land while our own domestic infrastructure falls apart before our eyes – exposes a disturbing dynamic at the heart of the Ukraine conflict: an international Ponzi scheme that enables Western elites to seize hard-earned wealth out of the hands of average US citizens and funnel it into the coffers of a foreign government that even the Western-sponsored Transparency International ranks as one of the most corrupt in Europe.”
Last week, The Grayzone published an independent audit of US tax dollar allocation to Ukraine during the fiscal years 2022 and 2023. Their investigation revealed, amongst others:
$4.5 billion worth of payments to pay off Ukraine’s sovereign debt, much of which is owned by the global investment firm BlackRock.
Tax dollars earmarked for Ukraine padding the budgets of a television station in Toronto, a pro-NATO think tank in Poland, and, believe it or not, rural farmers in Kenya.
Tens of millions of dollars went to private equity firms, including one in the Republic of Georgia, as well as a million-dollar payment to a single private entrepreneur in Kiev.
$4.5 million Pentagon contract with a notoriously corrupt company called Atlantic Diving Supply to provide Ukraine with unspecified explosives equipment.
“Yet once again, Congress has failed to ensure these shady payments and massive arms deals are properly tracked,” Blumenthal said. “In fact, much of the military and humanitarian aid shipped to Ukraine has simply vanished.”
“The embezzlement of funds and supplies is at least as troubling as the potential consequences of the illicit transfer and sales of military-grade weapons. Last June, the head of Interpol warned that the massive transfers of arms into Ukraine means ‘we can expect an influx of weapons in Europe and beyond’, and that ‘criminals are even now, as we speak, focusing on them’.
“The Biden administration not only knows that it cannot track the weapons it is shipping to Ukraine, it knows it is escalating a proxy war against the world’s largest nuclear power, and is daring it to respond in kind.”
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