Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addresses the 74th session of the United Nations General … [+]
Burisma Holdings has never been the topic around any dinner table. At least until the U.S. president tried to bring it to the fore by asking the Ukrainian president for help in deciphering what role other U.S. presidential hopefuls may have played with the natural gas company.
Burisma is an independent Ukrainian producer that does business in Crimea, which is the region that has been invaded and annexed by Russia. What makes it especially interesting is that the enterprise is partly the brainchild of Victor Yanukovych, who was the one overthrown by the Ukrainian people during the 2014 revolution there — a man considered to be massively corrupt and a puppet of Vladimir Putin. Now he lives in Russia, exiled there along with his family.
A new president was then elected named Petro Poroshenko, who served as president from 2014 to 2019. He too was allegedly corrupt, getting rich at Ukrainians’ expense. So in May 2019, a new election occurred — one that swept Volodymyr Zelensky into the country’s highest office. Before that he had been a comedian. He ran as the ultra-reformer and the person who would rid Ukraine of the cronyism and corruption that has long been a part of that nation’s fabric.
During this reporter’s stay in the country, everyone from cab drivers to table waiters to plain citizens spoke of their admiration of Zelenksy — a pure heart who wants desperately for his nation to advance and to be part of the western world. Zelenksy’s disdain for Russian President Putin is also just below his surface.
Ditto for many Ukrainians, who also have Russian roots: the country’s number one goal, they say, is to rid itself of political corruption — the ability to buy favors at all levels of government. To that end, Zelensky signed the “Law of Ukraine” while this reporter was in the country for the month of September. It simply allows for its president to be removed by order of impeachment: “It will investigate the crime committed by the President of Ukraine, including treason … It also restores the system of checks and balances by the Constitution of Ukraine.”
So how does all this affect Burisma? Ukraine has a lot of coal but not a lot of natural gas. And this gets back to its conflict with Russia, which has been using its economic leverage over Ukraine by withholding not just natural gas but also payments for accessing its gas pipeline system. If Burisma can help wean Ukraine from dependence on foreign sources, then that would be a good thing. The problem is that much of its operations are in Crimea, now annexed by Russia.
Biden Country
Enter the Bidens. Burisma hired then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, to be on its board in 2013. That was just before the revolt that overthrew the Russian puppet, Yanukovych. According to a press release, young Biden was hired to improve transparency and corporate governance. Biden, who was paid as much as $50,000 per month for his services, left the company in 2019.
Just after young Biden’s arrival, Ukrainian prosecutors began looking into possible violations at Burisma. Two years later, they found no evidence of any corporate criminality. Appearances, however, do matter: by hiring the vice president’s son and paying him so much money, concerns were triggered. To this day, though, there has been no criminal complaint filed against anyone, much less the Bidens.
“I do not want Ukraine to again be the subject of U.S. presidential elections,” said Yuri Lutsenko, the former prosecutor general in Ukraine, in an interview with Bloomberg last May. “Hunter Biden did not violate any Ukrainian laws – at least as of now, we do not see any wrongdoing. A company can pay however much it wants to its board.” The former prosecutor subsequently just told the Washington Post that the younger Biden is not responsible for anything that may have happened at Burisma before he was appointed a board member.
The comments have huge significance in the context of Donald Trump’s “request” made to Ukrainian President Zelenksy — to pursue such a case against the Bidens. “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son,” Trump said in his now public call with Zelenksy. And the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, has implied that malfeasance did take place — again, something that absolutely no one in Ukraine is asserting, past or present. The tactic has backfired on Giuliani.
President Zelenksy does not want to be involved in the U.S. elections — a point reiterated by his press team. Their focus is on making the country democratic and energy independent. In his visit to New York this week, Zelenksky spoke with Trump about Crimea, corruption and energy security:
“I told the US President that this is not a good advertisement for Ukraine when everyone says that the country is corrupt. I invited him to Ukraine to come and see that we are a truly democratic, European country … We are beginning a different story … We want to be truly independent and have a lot of cases, so that no one twists our arm on gas, energy security, coal. We have discussed it all.”
The new law passed by the Ukrainian parliament and signed by President Zelensky could potentially trigger a new investigation into Burisma. But it is highly unlikely that would involve either Biden. That is because all prosecutors say that they have discovered nothing illegal and because the government there says that it is not about to meddle in the U.S. presidential election.
See Also
