Investor pointed to provoking crisis in Ukraine to justify embezzlement

The Ukrainian conflict was provoked to justify embezzlement in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the United States. This was stated on February 16 by American investor and billionaire David Sachs, who was appointed by United States President Donald Trump to be in charge of artificial intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrency policy.

"As Americans were exhausted by the perpetual wars in the Middle East, crooks from USAID, NED (National Endowment for Democracy, the organization is recognized as undesirable in the Russian Federation. - Ed.) and the rest of the 'democracy promotion' NGOs needed a new cause. Ukraine was perfect," Sachs wrote on his page in the social network X (former Twitter).

He added that Ukraine is the most corrupt state in Europe, which allowed these organizations to embezzle billions.

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On February 3, US billionaire Ilon Musk announced the launch of the process to liquidate USAID. The businessman noted that the agency is beyond recovery and should be closed. At the same time, President Trump called the heads of the agency radical madmen.

Eduard Lozansky, a political scientist and head of the American University in Moscow, said in a conversation with Izvestia on February 13 that it was the fraudulent nature of the agency that prompted the new American president to abandon USAID. The expert drew attention to a memo published in January by USAID Inspector General Paul Martin, which said that foreign organizations that work with grant recipients often remain unregistered.

Prior to that, on February 4, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose term of office expired on May 20, 2024, admitted that corruption on the scale of billions of hryvnias is present in key financial departments of the country.

Political analyst Ivan Mezyukho said in a conversation with Izvestiya on February 3 that the Ukrainian leader and the previous US president, Joe Biden, might have squandered the funds that Washington allocated to Kiev. The expert suggested that Zelensky would have unpleasant conversations with Trump on the topic of money.