by arras for The Saker Blog

When you hear about the war in Ukraine, you might think of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia Western corporate media has been jellying at you about for five years. That war is fake, as fake as Trump-Russia collusion story. If there ever has been a war between Ukraine and Russia, it would have been over a long time ago. As Vladimir Putin famously said to the head of the EU Manuel Barroso in 2014, Russian tanks could be in Kiev, and the Ukrainian capital could be taken within two weeks if Russians wanted. And no serious political leader or military expert has ever cast a doubt on it.

There was a war in Ukraine between the Western-backed regime that came to power in Kiev after the Western-backed coup in 2014 and Russian backed rebels that refused to acknowledge the coup. But that war ended in 2014 when Ukraine signed a surrender-treaty called “Minsk II Accords” following the destruction of the Ukrainian army in the battle of Debaltsevo.

So what is The War in Ukraine, who fights there, and why?

The war that has been ongoing in Ukraine is the war for the right to milk the “Ukrainian cow”. This war isn’t a recent one, and it’s not unique for Ukraine. It’s the war that, in many regards, and at some degree of intensity exists almost everywhere. A cow is a state and those that milk it are various elites and mafias, that fight for redistribution of resources in the society. The difference is that while in most societies, those that milk the cow try to keep it alive so that it keeps bringing milk, in Ukraine nobody ever cared about well-being of the cow. Ukrainian post-Soviet elites, also sometimes called oligarchs, milked the Ukrainian cow mercilessly without limits, until the Ukrainian cow had enough and decided to give up. And so the war over what remains in its shabby udder is intensifying. So, who fights for the leftovers?

Waring Sides

Side 1: Igor Kolomoisky and allies

After the US refused to support Petro Poroshenko in the last presidential elections, leading to his defeat, Kolomoisky is the most powerful and most aggressive of what was left of Ukrainian post-Soviet oligarchy. Kolomoisky was a former ally of Poroshenko, he supported Western-backed Maidan coup of 2014, and then funded first neo-Nazi battalions for the civil war in the east of the country. In 2016 through his bank PrivatBank stole about 5.6 billion USD from the US and IMF loans to Ukraine with the help of then-president Poroshenko and head of Ukrainian national bank Valerya Hontareva. Kolomoisky then used money to buy different assets in the USA itself. That angered US government (back then during Barack Obama’s presidency) and IMF, who forced Poroshenko and Hontareva to nationalize PrivatBank, leading to the conflict between Poroshenko and Kolomoisky. The battle that Kolomoisky had lost and was forced to leave Ukrainian politics. Kolomoisky, Ukrainian government, PrivatBank, US government, and IMF fight over those 5.6 billion ever since in numerous court cases in Ukraine, Great Britain, and the USA.

After last elections of 2019 and the defeat of Poroshenko, Kolomoysky is back in power. He controls Ukrainian security and police apparatus via his ally Arsen Avakov -Ukrainian minister of internal affairs. He also controls largest faction inside ruling party of president Zelensky. Zelensky himself is close to Kolomoyski as he was working for TV channel owned by Kolomoisky. Work that made him popular in Ukraine. Popularity that in turn was crucial for his election victory. One can say that it was his work for Kolomoisky that made him president.

Arsen Avakov is a shadowy figure controlling not just Ukrainian security and police services and National Guard but also neo-Nazi and radical organizations and paramilitary formations in Ukraine. Avakov is also former Poroshenko’s ally and minister who played a crucial role in civil war and suppression of the opposition. However, sensing the changes in the political climate, he betrayed Poroshenko before elections and switched sides allying with Kolomoisky. As a result, he was able to keep his post as a minister of internal affairs in the new government.

Side 2: Soros, US Deep State and allies

George Soros, like Kolomoisky and other Ukrainian oligarchs, also milks cow. With the only difference that Soros does it globally. For him, the Ukrainian cow is one of a many. He projects his influence into Ukraine via the web of NGOs and financial organizations, which he began building in Ukraine long before Ukraine became even independent. He was setting his business there in advance. Currently, his web is managed by his local Ukrainian lieutenant called Tomas Fiala. Czech national, he heads company Dragon Capital, owns media network, and oversees NGOs that formally pretend to fight corruption. Meanwhile, Fiala himself was involved in several corruption scandals.

Soros and his organizations are closely cooperating with US foreign policy and security apparatus (also known as Deep State) and Democratic Party leadership as they share principal geopolitical interests of an international oligarchy of which Soros is a member.

Among Ukrainian post-Soviet oligarchs, Soros has a principal ally in Victor Pinchuk, the husband of the daughter of the second Ukrainian president and godfather of Ukrainian oligarchy Leonid Kuchma.

Together Soros and his allies control their own faction it the ruling party, second in size only to that of Kolomoisky. They also control economic ministers of the Ukrainian government whose sole purpose is to ride scooters, carry smartphones, have no previous experience in economy, and dutifully implement neoliberal orders from the IMF. In the media, people of Kolomoisky refer to them sarcastically as “sorosiata” -roughly translated as “Soros children.”

The Battlefield:

Comparing the two sides might look uneven. Local corrupt Ukrainian oligarch against even more corrupt, but much more powerful international oligarchy and its two subsidiaries: US Deep State and the IMF. Kolomoisky should stand no chance and should end up as another Ukrainian oligarch that crossed US Deep State, Dmytro Firtash.

Except Kolomoisky found unlikely ally: Donald Trump. Kolomoisky and Donald Trump have no direct shared interests; they most likely don’t even know each other. Trump has very little interest in Ukraine itself. However, they share something fundamental…they share enemies. Soros, Deep State, and Democratic Party leadership were undermining Trump already during presidential campaign and continue to do so till today. And Kolomoysky and his allies can help Donald Trump to strike back.

And they do. Ukraine is reopening not just investigation into Burisma company, and it’s owner, but also investigation of Hunter Biden directly.

This is Kolomoisky’s counter-attack against a constant pressure of the IMF to recoup billions Kolomoisky has stolen from IMF loans to Ukraine. IMF is withholding future loans to Ukraine until Ukraine complies. For the country with a ruined economy that relies on IMF and US loans to make ends meet, not to mention repayment of previous loans, that is equivalent of a loaded gun to the head.

But that’s not all. Even more dangerous for Kolomoisky is that the FBI had instituted criminal proceedings concerning his shenanigans. The investigation that threatens Kolomoisky with extradition to the USA. The trip that he is unlikely to return from, regardless even of his Israeli citizenship. Thus Kolomoisky is fighting not just for his (stolen) money, but his very survival.

That’s also probably the reason for his sudden change of heart toward Russia in his well-timed interview to the Washington Post, although that’s nothing more than a rather weak and transparent attempt to scare his opponents in USA.

The fact that local conflict over the right to milk soon to be empty udder of the sickly Ukrainian cow interlocks with the civil war inside US establishment is a good reason to keep an eye over what’s going on in Ukraine behind fake Russian aggression propaganda of the corporate media. For implications are not just for Ukraine and the USA, but the rest of the world as well.

arras’ bio: HIC SVNT LEONES