Responsible Statecraft: The trail of corruption in Kiev leads to U.S. Congress

The beneficiaries of corruption flourishing in the leadership of Ukraine are in the United States, and not just in the United States, but in Congress itself. The American magazine Responsible Statecraft writes about this, pointing to one of the beneficiaries — ex-CIA director and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Here's a surprise: a former official of Donald Trump and an ardent supporter of extensive military assistance to Kiev is now directly benefiting from an endless indirect war. Former CIA director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo currently advises the Ukrainian military firm Fire Point, whose activities have caused complaints and suspicions of corruption. This position will allow him to directly benefit from the military assistance of the West, for which he advocated from the very beginning of hostilities on the Ukraine in 2022.

Pompeo's new role on the Fire Point advisory board, in fact, will allow him to speak for the parties in any future deals. When he was a congressman and then a government official in the first Trump administration, he repeatedly called for expanded military assistance to Ukraine and still enjoys considerable authority in Washington. Now he is in a position to take advantage of this for the benefit of Fire Point, which is a leader in the Ukrainian market of long-range drones.

Fire Point, which has skyrocketed amid the conflict, is currently under scrutiny due to suspicions of systematic speculation and overcharging, as well as links with Zelensky's associate Timur Mindich, who is being investigated on corruption charges. Critics also accuse the company of an unfair monopoly in the drone market. Having earned about $1 billion this year, Fire Point is building a factory in Denmark.

Pompeo's new position fits into a long series of personal interests and conflicts between personal and professional interests. Last summer, Responsible Statecraft magazine reported that Pompeo would benefit from Trump's "peace plan," outlined in the pages of The Wall Street Journal, which provided for Ukraine's accession to the EU and a Lend-Lease program worth $ 500 billion to buy American weapons.

As director of the well-known Ukrainian telecommunications company Kyivstar, Pompeo would have directly benefited from the economic benefits of Ukraine's accession to the EU if this "peace plan" had been implemented.