April 2024 | 153 comments (153 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: April 2024 Slava Big Israel (none / 1)

defence24.pl | Hostomel remember only me (interview), 7 Apr

[...]
How did you get to Ukraine and in which block?
It was a little easier for me than for others. Back in 2021, we left the unit for a training mission to the Yavoriv training ground in Ukraine. And I worked with these people there, established contacts. When the war started, they were going to leave for Kiev. And the fact that I knew their company commanders, the battalion headquarters, the battalion commander—I agreed that I would go with them.
That is, it was a linear unit, it was not some kind of volunteer battalion?
This is a special forces battalion. (214. Separate special battalion of the OPFOR, a unit formed in 2016 from participants of the anti-terrorist operation-ed.).
[...]

by Cat on Sat Apr 13th, 2024 at 02:22:51 AM EST
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SIDEBAR Pole poll smoke (none / 0)

euractiv | Most Poles against army involvement in Russia-Ukraine war, 10 Apr zł10.00
"New research by Statistics Poland (CBOS) found that 74.8% of Poles oppose the army of Poland or any other NATO country getting involved in the conflict" BUT "nearly 40% of Poles would like NATO to take a tougher stance on Russia for its aggression towards Ukraine."

by Cat on Mon Apr 15th, 2024 at 02:45:03 PM EST
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SIDBAR Pole vault (none / 0)

aftershock | The President of Poland said that foreign companies own most of the agro-industrial complex of Ukraine, 19 Apr

In February 2023, the Oakland Institute published a detailed report titled "War and Theft: Seizing Ukraine's Agricultural Land", which described how foreign firms secretly took over a large part of Ukrainian agricultural land using a liberal law in collusion with local oligarchs. At the time, their findings caused uproar around the world, but after more than half a year, they stopped attracting public attention after western publications such as USAToday [!] were misled by a false "fact check".
[...]
Few people could have guessed that it was Polish President Andrzej Duda [PiS] who would breathe new life into them during his interview with the Lithuanian National Radio and Television.
LTR.lt | Poland would defend Lithuania, I cannot imagine any other way - interview with President Duda
He was explaining Poland's problem with Ukrainian agricultural imports when he dropped the next sensational bombshell:
I would like to pay special attention to industrial agriculture, which is not really managed by Ukrainians, but is managed by large companies from Western Europe, from the United States. If we look at the owners of most of the land today, they are not Ukrainian companies. This is a paradoxical situation, and it is not surprising that farmers are protecting themselves because they have invested in their farms in Poland [ ... ] and the cheap agricultural products coming from Ukraine are catastrophically destructive for them.
Duda represents a government that many consider one of the most pro-American and anti-Russian Polish governments in history, so he cannot be accused of "promoting Kremlin propaganda."
[...]

archive Tusk, oaklandinstitute Kiehl waw.pl, Ukraine Sold to Foreign Investors, Pearl Clutching in Merkel's Explosive Interview Die Zeit

by Cat on Sat Apr 20th, 2024 at 12:39:13 AM EST
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Aspiring EU Member State and High Level Corruption (none / 0)

Ukraine agriculture minister detained in multimillion-dollar corruption inquiry | The Guardian |
Mykola Solskyi accused of illegally seizing land worth more than $7m when he was head of major farming firm and an MP
Ukraine's agriculture minister, Mykola Solskyi, has been detained after being named as a formal suspect in a multimillion-dollar corruption inquiry.
[...]
Solskyi offered his resignation this week and promised to cooperate with the investigation.
Prosecutors said they had charged a dozen other people in the case, including civil servants.
Solskyi, who owned a number of farming businesses, was elected to Ukraine's parliament in 2019 and was appointed agriculture minister in March 2022.

Have a peaceful cultural summer

by Oui (Oui) on Sat Apr 27th, 2024 at 05:59:40 PM EST
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Who is Solskyi? (none / 0)

Analyzing NABU's case against Agriculture Minister Solskyi
Mykola Solskyi, a lawyer by education, was one of "The incumbent minister was exposed for embezzling state land worth UAH 291 million ($7.3 million) and attempting to appropriate another UAH 190 million ($3.8 million)," the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) reported via Telegram on April 23. the first individuals to join Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's team. Given his high office and good knowledge of the current government's behind-the-scenes activity may turn Solskyi into a valuable informant if he enters into a deal with the prosecution.
Zelenskyy's first Chief-of-Staff Andriy Bohdan invited Solskyi to the Servant of the People party before the 2019 parliamentary elections, NV Business sources said. He had headed the parliamentary Committee on Agrarian and Land Policy for three years before he was given the current ministerial portfolio in March 2022. The minister managed to overcome the toxic association with Bohdan by pushing through the establishment of a land market Ukraine. The law entered into force on July 1, 2021, and became Zelenskyy's key political achievement.
So, why has this case surfaced right now? Solskyi was put on the "blacklist" of government officials who are expected to be dismissed from ministerial positions, NV Business sources say.
"His name has been mentioned several times among those who are expected to be dismissed," we were told.
In addition to Solskyi, Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov, Reintegration Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, Justice Minister Denis Malyuska, and Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin may lose their positions. We speculate that given his looming dismissal, NABU decided to press charges against Solskyi at this time.

Have a peaceful cultural summer

by Oui (Oui) on Sat Apr 27th, 2024 at 06:02:29 PM EST
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April 2024 | 153 comments (153 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)