The U.S.-backed “regime change” in Ukraine – launching a New Cold War with Russia in 2014 – was rationalized by the need to rid Ukraine of corruption, but post-coup officials are busier than ever lining their pockets. Consortium News Welcome to Ukraine, the most corrupt country in Europe The Guardian Both Biden and Kerry championed $1.8 billion in taxpayer-backed loans to be given to Ukraine courtesy of the IMF. That money would go directly through Kolomoisky's PrivatBank, and then it would disappear. The Patriot Watchdog Burisma Paid Former Ukrainian President Poroshenko $100mm To Suppress Hunter Biden Investigation in 2017, Bribed FBI agents Ignored Evidence, the US Embassy in Kyiv Neck Deep in Corruption. Investment Watch Buris Ukrainian political scientist Taras Kuzio said, “High-level Ukrainian officials, if not directly are dealing in illegal arms, are reportedly either smoothing the path for sales or at least looking the other way. Christian Science Monitor Ukraine has gained a reputation as one of the world’s most active suppliers of illegal small arms. Frontline PBS News Joe Biden brags about extorting the government of Ukraine threatening that they would not receive their scheduled aid package unless they pull the prosecutor off the case where his son Biden was identified as the recipient of over $3,000,000.00. dagalagas YouTube video 9/20/2019 Get a first-hand real-life experience with an American investor who lived and worked in Ukraine for six years. Learn what a foreign investor must go through to get a business up and running successfully in Ukraine - or should we say unsuccessfully? The American government knows these facts about Ukraine but continue to send BILLIONS of dollars to them. BILLIONS of $$ have mysteriously disappeared into thin air. Russia and Putin are not perfect. But they are not the problem in Ukraine. Ukraine is Ukraine’s problem – Not Russia.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • “A rich and revealing account of the turbulent relationship between the U.S. and Russia during the first post-Cold War years. . . . Essential for any understanding of this critical and even dangerous period.”—Elizabeth Drew “A fascinating memoir of a weirdly unpredictable world.”—The New York Review of Books In the eight years Bill Clinton was president, as Russia lurched from crisis to crisis, each one more horrifying than the last, Clinton and his foreign-policy team found they faced no greater task than helping to keep Russia stable and at peace with herself and her neighbors. Strobe Talbott’s mesmerizing account of this struggle reveals what a close-run thing this was, and how much the relationship between George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin has been defined by the work of Bill Clinton. Written with a novelistic richness and energy, The Russia Hand is the first great book about war and peace in the post-Cold War world. It is also the one book anyone needs to understand Russia’s fateful transformation and future possibilities after ten years as a democracy.

We see mafias as vast, powerful organizations, harvesting billions of dollars across the globe and wrapping their tentacles around everything from governance to finance. But is this the truth? Traveling from mafia initiation ceremonies in far-flung Russian cities to elite gambling clubs in downtown Macau, Federico Varese sets off in search of answers. Using wiretapped conversations, interviews, and previously unpublished police records, he builds up a picture of the real men and women caught up in mafia life, showing their loves and fears, ambitions and disappointments, as well as their crimes. Mafia Life takes us into the real world of organized crime, where henchmen worry about bad managers and have high blood pressure, assassinations are bungled as often as they come off, and increasing pressure from law enforcement means that a life of crime is no longer lived in the lap of luxury. As our world changes, so must mafias. Globalization, migration, and technology are disrupting their traditions and threatening their revenue streams, and the Mafiosi must evolve or die. Mafia Life is an intense and totally compelling look at these organizations and the daily life of their members, as they get to grips with the modern world.

An in-depth, authoritative, and timely look at the unprecedented economic war the US and its European allies are waging against Russia after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine—written by a veteran journalist with unparalleled access to Western and Russian sources. Undeterred by eight years of timid US sanctions, Vladimir Putin ordered his full-scale assault on Ukraine on February 24, 2022. In the hours that followed across the world, Western leaders weaponized economic tools to counter an unprecedented land grab by a nuclear-armed power. What followed was an undeniably world-changing financial experiment that risked throwing the world into a devastating recession. The end goal was simple: to sap the strength of Putin’s war machine and damage the Russian economy—once the eleventh largest on the planet. Here, Russian expert and veteran journalist Stephanie Baker explains in fascinating detail how this furious shadow-war unfolded: its causes, how it is being executed, and its ability to affect Russia and the course of history. From seizing superyachts to manipulating the global price of oil to trying to block the sale of military technology to Russia, we learn how the White House coordinated with top officials in London and Brussels to freeze a staggering $300 billion in foreign currency reserves accumulated in the West by Russia’s central bank. Mobilizing an army of white collar-crime investigators and experts on international law, Baker explores how the West has cracked down on illicit Russian money by targeting oligarchs, one superyacht at a time, and their enablers around the world. Filled with propulsive, fly-on-the-wall details, Punishing Putin takes us into the frantic backroom deliberations that led to a whole new era of carefully calculated “economic statecraft” and shows how these new strategies are already radically rearranging global alliances that will influence the world order today, and for generations to come.