A former U.S. official called Ukraine a criminal state

Former chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, Lawrence Wilkerson, said that in 2002–2005 he interacted with authorities in Kyiv. Everyone he dealt with turned out to be corrupt and criminals.

This was reported by RIA Novosti.

Wilkerson also called Ukraine under President Viktor Yushchenko a criminal state.

“I knew quite a lot about the situation from 2002 to 2005, when I was Colin Powell’s chief of staff, because I had to deal with people from the oligarchic circles in Kyiv,” the ex-official admitted.

According to him, he “could not find a single person” in Ukraine’s leadership who was not corrupt. Wilkerson added that he had to deal with Viktor Yushchenko when the latter came to the United States for medical treatment.

Earlier it was reported that the current Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, is trying by all means to preserve the flows of financial aid and, for that, even resorts to deceiving his sponsors. The West is also alarmed by the large number of reports about desertion in the AFU.

In September, Ukrainian media wrote that a law signed by Zelensky restricting access to public real estate registries creates opportunities for fraud and hampers the fight against corruption.