Manafort helped destroy a country

By Diana Pilipenko
The Washington Post
8/17/18

During Paul Manafort’s trial for tax evasion and bank fraud, the public has heard over-the-top tales of illicit trysts in London, ostrich leather jackets and overpriced antique rugs. Bankers, IRS agents and accountants have testified at length about how Manafort defrauded financial institutions and the U.S. government. Yet little attention has been paid to the constituency that perhaps suffered most from Manafort’s deeds: the people of Ukraine. I grew up in Ukraine, and reading the court documents detailing Manafort’s work for the country’s former president, Viktor Yanukovych, left me disgusted and depressed. The people who suffered from Yanukovych’s corrupt regime are my relatives, my friends and my former neighbors. They are not abstractions or numbers on a ledger, and under Yanukovych their lives took a back seat to state-sponsored greed. Many in Ukraine credit Manafort with the 2010 resurrection of Yanukovych, who lost a bid for president in 2004 after serious electoral fraud on his behalf was exposed, triggering massive protests. “Manafort worked for a long time so that Yanukovych could come to power and use that power for his own corrupt schemes, not reform,” said Serhiy Leshchenko, a member of Ukraine’s parliament and the investigative journalist who published evidence of the $12 million in payments from Yanukovych’s Party of Regions to Manafort. Yanukovych defanged law enforcement and the courts, stifled the free press, undermined integration with the European Union, welcomed Kremlin influence and, along with his cronies, allegedly stole up to $100 billion from the country — equivalent to nearly 90 percent of Ukraine’s economic output last year.

Many have noted that Manafort’s two most recent high-profile clients, Yanukovych in 2010 and Donald Trump in 2016, both advanced the interests of the Kremlin. And Manafort’s trial has also shown that his work to elect Yanukovych — which earned him more than $60 million — was rooted in corruption. Just as in the campaign he ran for Trump, Manafort counseled Yanukovych to not only inflame economic insecurities, but also to create fissures within Ukrainian society to be exploited for political advantage. Grievances of Yanukovych’s native Donbas region in the east, with industry in decline, were amplified. In a country where, historically, Russian and Ukrainian languages have coexisted, the citizens were pitted against each other across linguistic lines. To be sure, corruption and abuses of power were present in Ukraine before Yanukovych assumed office. But his administration took it to a level that had not existed before. The year after Yanukovych was elected, the managing partner of a prominent law firm in Kiev told me that, under the previous government, those involved in court cases could win by paying the biggest bribe. Under Yanukovych, though, judges ruled only in favor of the interests of the regime. The power of the state was unrestrained. Manafort is fortunate to be guaranteed a fair trial and an impartial jury in the United States. The people of Ukraine who lived under the regime of the man he helped elect in 2010 enjoyed no such privileges. It is a bitter lesson that we would do well to learn from.

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Rogue Valley said:

Yes, Paul Manafort is on trial for crimes in the U.S. But his work in Ukraine helped to destroy a country.

On trial-in-absentia by Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych testifies from his sanctuary of Russia via a video link.



Diana Pilipenko is the associate director for anti-corruption and illicit finance at the Center for American Progress. After Donald Trump decided to provide Ukraine with a lethal US weapon (Javelin anti-tank missiles), the Ukraine government of Petro Poroshenko put on hold an extradition request to the US government for Paul Manafort, wanted in Ukraine for embezzlement, money laundering, and election violations. A quid-pro-quo? I believe so. The Ukraine government has finished with its prosecution of deposed former president Viktor Yanukovych and has requested a prison term of 15 years. Seeing that he is currently 68 years old, 15 years would probably amount to him dying in prison. Fair enough. His remaining son Olexandr should be prosecuted next. Both father and son enjoy political sanctuary in Russia, which does not extradite anyone wanted for crimes beyond Russia's borders. I personally hope Paul Manafort (69) receives lengthy sentences for his crimes and dies in prison.

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haymarket said:

Manafort is a traitor to the interests of his country in the truest sense of the term and screw the legal definition of it..... and deserves to spend the rest of his life in hard time in prison.

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haymarket said:

Manafort is a traitor to the interests of his country in the truest sense of the term and screw the legal definition of it..... and deserves to spend the rest of his life in hard time in prison.

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beerftw said:

Wow blaming manafort for destroying a country, or are you going to back to the russians? Ukraine went from being the most prosperous republic in the soviet union to the second poorest country in europe due to poor management and corruption. Had they kept running the soviet equipment left behind then later modernized it like west germany did for east germany, ukraine would be a power house. Instead they let their industry fail, their mining towns in the east fail, and even their military equipment fail, heck they could nearly match russia in military equipment if they could ever get most of it to run, instead they let everything rot away instead of using what was given to them.


Manafort did not cause the pro russian president to win, nor did any conspiracy, what enabled him to win was ukraines shift towards western europe followed by the 2007 american meltdown and the 2008 european union meltdown, which saw much of europe in recession, while russia was virtually un effected by it. This caused ukraine to look east over their own problems, had there been no european union economic crisis there never would have been the pro russian president elected, he won because ukraines economy suffered from that meltdown, and people vote with their wallets before all else.

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Rogue Valley said:

I'll pass on your by now predictable Russia apologia.

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beerftw said:

So no refuting anything, no discussion

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Rogue Valley said:

I've dealt with you enough. Circular arguments, denials, Russian troll memes, etc. etc.

Someone that's never even been to Ukraine or Russia but he knows everything. A waste of time.

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