The First Cracks in the Biden-Zelensky Relationship Appear. But Why Now?

Martin Jay

August 4, 2022

© Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Has Biden figured that the way to divert opprobrium from the US media is to get out of the war in Ukraine and look at a second phase later on?

You might have easily missed it. The reference, for the first time by the left-wing press in the US which supports Biden, that corruption exists and is a real problem in the administration of President Zelensky in Ukraine.

The article, penned by the Washington Post’s top foreign affairs correspondent and award-winning journalist Thomas L Friedman, was really about hinting that relations between the Biden camp and Zelensky’s was hardly one on firm ground. Perhaps it never was. But for the moment, this narrative is being fed into the system – via Friedman – is that relations are not quite what they are perceived to be by most western media.

The timing is interesting as I have long argued that the US is looking for a way to distance itself from Zelensky and may well be considering how to remove him (even by assassination which could be blamed on the Russians). Is the Biden camp preparing the ground for such a move with this article?

Friedman described Zelensky’s decision to fire Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova and the head of the State Security Service (SBU), Ivan Bakanov, in mid-July as “funny business going on in Kiev” adding that he hadn’t yet seen any reporting in the US media that “convincingly explains” the reasons behind the largest shakeup in the Kiev government since the beginning of the war. He then hits us with the kill shot.

“It is as if we don’t want to look too closely under the hood in Kiev for fear of what corruption or antics we might see, when we have invested so much there,” he wrote.

Is this a hint of some sort? Is Biden warning Zelensky to clean his backyard up and to keep the lid on re-selling of US arms to the black market of weapons, which often means selling to terrorist groups in Syria – or else. 

Or is he saying to the rest of the media, that this is the theme which we would like you to carry on? Certainly, to start with the Washington Post and using someone like Friedman would be a deft media move to create a momentum on the given theme of graft getting out of control. But equally, it would be an erudite move to send a message to Zelensky himself. We will soon know in the coming weeks.

It’s quite possible that Biden’s camp knew about the Ukraine military selling off huge amounts of the military sent to the Ukraine and were quite happy with it, as long as Zelensky played ball on a number of matters which revolved around the same theme: the White House calls the shots on the day-to-day events of the war. This feeds into the thousands of satirical memes on social media which portray Zelensky as some kind of sex slave, complete with PVC underwear.

But here are the five scenarios which explain the corruption and weapons being resold

1. Money laundering. Biden is sending the hardware and Zelensky is selling half of it to the arms market. The money is being kept by Zelensky on behalf of Biden. Zelensky is simply a bank manager for Biden whose family have many murky business deals in the country anyway.
2. Biden is aware of the arms being sold on and Zelensky keeping the profits in return for keeping a number of business deals which the Biden family have there.
3. The Ukrainian military is selling the equipment and keeping the profits themselves and Zelensky is not part of it, although he gives tacit approval to it.
4. The cash from the arms re-selling and also money from US taxpayers is being held in a ‘dirty bank’ account, controlled by Zelensky which the Biden family are keeping for their own purposes.
5. The Biden camp are using such profits to arm and fund its own terrorist groups in the Middle East or other hotspots in the world. This dirty money can be useful for Biden in exactly the same way that Reagan used 30 million dollars from the Iranians in the 80s, used in part to fund the ‘Contras’ in Nicaragua.

Has Biden figured that the way to divert opprobrium from the US media is to get out of the war in Ukraine and look at a second phase later on? He could quickly reduce the levels of military packages and cash citing concerns over accountability while directing media to the new ‘threat’ of China, which of course, was completely manufactured by him and Pelosi. Is this the win-win scenario where he can continue to shove scores of billions of US taxpayers’ money to the military industrial complex which some sceptical hacks might assume are giving him and his family huge kickbacks in return – while at the same time try to hoodwink the US public that a military standoff with China is going on and he alone is saving America? That should bring him nicely up to the midterms and perhaps voters will not notice 5 dollar a gallon gas and America in the deepest recession since 1929, right? Watch very closely how US journalists now slowly turn on Zelensky and start looking at his government and actions through clearer, non rose-tinted specs.  ‘Graft’ is about to become the new Ukraine subject for western media. About time.