Ukraine’s Billionaire ‘Chocolate Tycoon’ President Speaks to Congress; Calls For More Aid From U.S. Taxpayers Because “Ukraine is just like Israel.”

“Chocolate Tycoon” billionaire Petro Poroshenko was elected President of the new U.S.-backed puppet regime of Ukraine earlier this year, and lately he’s been winning the overwhelming admiration of Senators and Representatives of both houses of Congress, as evidenced by the untold amount of standing ovations he received while delivering his address on Thursday. Perhaps this is to be expected considering how he possesses a fortune of up to $1.3 billion, was once the head of Council for Ukraine’s National Bank, and has been regularly accused over the past decade of being hopelessly corrupt. Come to think of it, it’s hard to imagine a more appropriate representative of everything the America’s congressional representatives stand for!

Right off the bat, Poroshenko demonstrated he is anything but stupid, proving he knows just what words to say if your goal is ultimately to convince the U.S. congress to provide your country’s military with more lethal weaponry and aid to assist in fighting against perceived “Russian aggression” (the recently agreed-to cease-fire be damned!)

“I thank all those in America who realize and appreciate the historic importance of this fight.
Just like Israel, Ukraine has the right to defend her territory…
The world has plunged into the worst security crisis since U.S.-U.S.S.R. stand-off of 1962.
Today we are witnessing another attempt at dividing the world. Ukraine stands in the center of this attempt.”

He spoke of the “dark turn” that Europe will be plunged into if Eastern Ukraine is allowed to secede from the West, and he seems to have been prepared with a knowledgeable checklist of just what to say to convince Americans of the need to go all in. Talk of Israel’s greatness and “right to defend itself”? Check! Describe Russia in terms meant to draw parallels with WWII Germany? Check! Appeal to older Americans’ sense of Cold War nostalgia? Check! Serve up platitudes about America’s supposed role in supporting “freedom”, “democracy” and “self-determination” in the world? Check!

Petro Poroshenko speaks to the press in Ukraine, with Mayor-elect Vitali Klitschko to his left.

That so many in the American political class have found it convenient to invoke the name of Adolf Hitler whenever they speak about Vladimir Putin is ironic considering how the most recent elections came about in the first place. To put it mildly, the February coup in Kiev which ousted the democratically-elected President Viktor Yanukovych was for all intents and purposes cooked up by neo-cons and neo-liberals in Washington D.C., as evidenced by the inordinate amount of meetings which took place between anti-Yanukovych forces – among them the leaders of known neo-Nazi militia members – and U.S. officials such as Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Arizona Senator John McCain. Even more telling is the fact that the Director of the CIA himself, John “Drone” Brennan, and Vice President of the United States Joe Biden were present in Kiev just hours before the successful coup was implemented.

In the coup’s aftermath, Victoria Nuland’s hand-selected candidate, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, was installed as Ukrainian Prime Minister. (*) And in the subsequent elections which brought billionaire oligarch Poroshenko to power, left and centre-left candidates Oleg Tsarev and Peter Simonenko were purportedly intimidated with threatened into withdrawing their candidacies from the race. Ever since the coup was carried out, towns and communities in the country’s east have been declaring their autonomy and independence from the central government, decrying it as illegitimate and a Western proxy regime. This brought the wrath of Kiev down upon the newly declared independent Republics, such as the Donetsk Peoples’ Republic. With the apparent backing of Washington, towns in the east came under immense shelling from the Kiev administration, committing a number of massacres, resulting in some 3,000 people killed so far. Close to 1 million refugees have fled from the chaos by crossing the border into Russia, and they clearly hold the Kiev regime responsible for the absolute devastation. While slightly more than 50% of Donetsk’s residents have fled the region, many remain to rally for the cause. In the words of a 58 year-old resident attending a 1,500-person strong rally on September 8th, “We loved Ukraine until they started bombing us, now we can never go back there. They are fascists…” That is not an overstatement. Lately Kiev has resorted to deploying self-identified neo-Nazi fascist militia groups to Eastern Ukraine to carry out the regime’s dirty work.

Given the current state of affairs, one might have missed the various cables made public by WikiLeaks a few years ago which showed United States government officials didn’t always have such a rosy opinion of Petro Poroshenko like they have today. As reported in the Washington Post:

In one cable from 2006, for example, Poroshenko is casually described as a “disgraced oligarch” by the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst. Later that year, a cable from Deputy Chief of the U.S. Mission in Kiev Sheila Gwaltney mentions that “Poroshenko was tainted by credible corruption allegations.”

More cables continue this theme. Another 2006 cable finds Herbst recalling how he was told Poroshenko was a “discredited” figure who was a “net-minus” for his party, Our Russia. Later, the new head of the U.S. diplomatic mission, William Taylor, says Poroshenko is “a deeply unpopular politician” but has “widespread support among party leaders due to his past financial/organizational roles.”

Kommersant notes that the criticism appears to stop in 2009, when Poroshenko became Ukraine’s foreign minister.

Despite his overly-dramatic pleas, however, Poroshenko will have to settle for a measly extra of just $50 million for now. While the Senate passed a much larger bill on Thursday which includes both lethal weaponry and additional sanctions on Russia, as of this writing the House doesn’t appear to have taken it up.

Additional Notes:

* Despite being presented by the U.S. as a so-called “moderate”, Arseniy Yatsenyuk has referred to ethnic Russian rebelling in the country’s eastern regions as being “sponsored by subhumans”. He followed this statement by stating his committment to “cleansing our land of evil.”

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