Ukraine

I was kind of hoping that when we cut off aid to Ukraine, the war would come to an end. I don't know what happened but the fighting continues and the blowhards are continuing to blowhard. This story from Aljazeera sheds a little light on the situation. 

Ukraine’s sovereignty was violated long before Trump by Peter Korotaev

For years, Ukrainian governments have been pressured into implementing policies that are not necessarily in the interests of the Ukrainian people. 

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko in Washington, DC, on April 30, 2025, after signing a deal that gives the US preferential access to Ukrainian minerals [Yulia Svyrydenko's Facebook page via Reuters]

On June 16, the Ukrainian government started the process for opening bids for foreign companies to mine lithium deposits in the country. Among the interested investors is a consortium linked to Ronald S Lauder, who is believed to be close to United States President Donald Trump.

The bid is part of a minerals deal signed in April that is supposed to give the US access to Ukraine’s mineral wealth. The agreement was negotiated over months and was touted by Trump as “payback” for US military support for the Ukrainian military.

The final text, which the Ukrainian side has celebrated as “more favourable” compared with previous iterations, paves the way for US investment in the mining and energy sectors in Ukraine. Investment decisions will be made jointly by US and Ukrainian officials, profits will not be taxed and US companies will get preferential treatment in tenders and auctions.

Trump’s demand for access to Ukrainian mineral wealth was slammed by many as infringing on Ukrainian sovereignty and being exploitative at a time when the country is fighting a war and is highly dependent on US arms supplies. But that is hardly an aberration in the record of relations between Ukraine and the West. For more than a decade now, Kyiv has faced Western pressure to make decisions that are not necessarily in the interests of its people.

Interference in domestic affairs

Perhaps the most well-known accusations of Western influence peddling have to do with the son of former US President Joe Biden – Hunter Biden. He became a board member of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma in May 2014, three months after Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian president of Ukraine, fled to Russia during nationwide protests.

At that time, Joe Biden was not only vice president in President Barack Obama’s administration but also its pointman on US-Ukrainian relations. Over five years, Hunter Biden earned up to $50,000 a month as a board member. The apparent conflict of interest in this case bothered even Ukraine’s European allies.

You can read the rest of it here.