Quote (Black XistenZ @ Nov 14 2022 08:32pm)
Dude, this kind of behavior puts Zelensky in the bottom decile of corruption by the standards of Ukrainian elites. The big question mark surrounding Zelensky is not personal corruption, but rather his relationship with the notoriously shady oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi. Zelensky most definitely isn't his "puppet" and just carrying out Kolomoyskyi's orders like some critics insinuate, but I would prefer a political leader without any ties to figures like that guy. Let's just say that in a post-war Ukraine, I would expect Kolomoyskyi to have "good business fortune".
I don't disagree with any of that, that's basically what I was getting at with my post, the links to Kolomoyskyi seem super sketchy. I wouldn't care if Zelensky just made some extra cash, most western politicians leave office millions of dollars richer so that wouldn't be anything unique to Ukraine, and he actually has a successful career to warrant having money anyway.
The whole conflict to me seems like it was probably influenced by the US, I think the revolution that ousted the more pro Russian government was supported by them to make adding Ukraine to NATO less complicated.
I don't think they believed Russia would or could react to it at the time, and their eventual goal was to ring Russia in missile defenses to neutralize them as a nuclear threat. I think Zelensky was more a tool than a puppet in all of it, I don't doubt he is actually a decent guy who believes in what he ran on, but he had no political experience so it's very likely he could be influenced by whoever he is being advised by.