Thread by @chick_in_kiev

I'm just gonna tell a fun story about *one* subplot in the colorful and exotic life of Paul Manafort. Because I'm feeling very Ukrainian right now and it's quite a tale!
Remember this story? Let me tell you a little about just who was paying Paulie.
nytimes.com/2016/08/15/us/…

Ultra-corrupt Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych wasn't the first of Manafort's clients to be deposed in a popular uprising (that would be Ferdinand Marcos of the Phillipines) but he was the most recent.

Acc. to the NYT, "Mr. Yanukovych and his Party of Regions relied heavily on the advice of Mr. Manafort and his firm, who helped them win several elections."

When I lived in Kiev, I saw the impact of deeply corrupt politics up close: Presidential luxury, and people paying bribes just to get through the hideous fug of calcified Soviet-style bureaucracy. I had to pay a bribe to FedEx's Ukrainian partner once.

The best view in the city, beside the memorial of the 1933 Ukrainian famine? Marred by a big, garish presidential helipad.

And meanwhile I saw women selling dillflowers for pennies to get enough for bread. And the streets were covered with unsalted slick ice.

In 2013, Ukrainians had had enough.
After Yanukovych turned away from a prospective trade deal with the EU in favor of a hastily-cooked deal with Putin, students and activists revolted, taking over Maidan Nezalezhnisti (Independence Square) in Kyiv.

Under Yanukovych's orders, security forces cracked down. On Feb 20, 2014, 48 protesters died. nytimes.com/2018/05/30/mag…

Maidan Nezalezhnisti is a gorgeous square. Here's a before and after photo:

After those deaths, the uprising grew. And kept growing.

Eventually, Yanukoyvch fled overnight to Ukraine, to an undisclosed location in Russia.

In awe, the population flooded the newly vacated presidential palace.
There, they found a scale model of a pirate ship, a petting zoo, peacocks, a private 3D movie theater. A block of gold shaped like a loaf of bread.

atlasobscura.com/places/mezhyhi…

In the headquarters of the Party of Regions, a fire was set during the anti-corruption protests. Members of a newly created Anti-Corruption Force, including @Leshchenkos, pieced together documents that detailed illegal spending and corruption. Manafort's name cropped up.

The "black ledger" with details of millions of dollars paid to Manafort was sent to Serhiy Leshchenko, an investigative journalist and now a parliamentarian. He wrote about Manafort here: washingtonpost.com/news/democracy…

Corruption is still endemic in Ukraine, a centuries-old tradition, and Russia is nipping at its flank. The war is ongoing.
But for the dead, who died to see justice in their country, who dreamed of a better, freer future, I am glad that Manafort's corruption will be punished.

In this life I will always fight for those who need bread, not those who keep gold replicas of it.
May Manafort's ostrich coat become like Yanukovych's private galleon, his private church, his luxury car collection: relics in a museum of corruption.
telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews…