Manafort helped Yanukovych, a Putin loyalist, get elected president of Ukraine in 2010. His regime stole $40 Billion, & he killed a deal w/ the EU in favor of Russia, sparking protests. Police shot protestors, triggering a revolution. He fled to Russia. 1/
kyivpost.com/ukraine-politi…
kyivpost.com/ukraine-politi…
These events in which Paul Manafort played a key role were a huge deal. The revolution is now called Euromaidan because the protesters were pro-Europe and were shot in Maidan square. After Yanukovych fled, he asked Putin to intervene militarily. 2/
After Yanukovych fled, Ukrainian citizens were shocked and appalled to discover the opulance of his palace, which was half the size of Monaco. He had a private zoo (he abandoned the animals when he fled), a golf course, and yacht. 3/
4/ One reason so many people protested Yanukovych's decision to spike the EU deal (at Putin's request) is that Ukraine's citizens were fed up with the staggering political corruption that had arisen under Russia's influence, while 30 percent of the country lived in poverty.
Yanukovych--who Manafort helped install--destroyed the hope of many Ukrainians to have a better system of government & life. The EU and U.S. were far from perfect. But political corruption in the West wasn't & isn't (yet) on the same order of magnitude as in Ukraine & Russia. 5/
6/ At the time (2014), Ukraine ranked 144th place on the International Transparency Organization’s corruption perception index (a bad score), which measures perceived levels of corruption. Russia ranked 127th; the UK ranked 14th, and the US ranked 19th. transparency.org/en/cpi/2014/in…
7/ It wasn’t just a matter of perception. According to Swedish economist @anders_aslund , between 2010 and 2013, public corruption had generated about $8 billion to $10 billion in ill-gotten annual gains for Yanukovych and his family. This was criminal. journalofdemocracy.org/wp-content/upl…
8/ After Yanukovych fled to Russia (where he still lives in exile), Russia illegally annexed Crimea (part of Ukraine), hacked Ukraine's power grid, and hacked its election infrastructure. brookings.edu/blog/order-fro…
9/ "The Russian attacks on Ukraine's power grid were extensive. In 2015, electricity was cut to nearly a quarter-million Ukrainians, and about a year later a transmission station was taken down, revealing the attacks were becoming more sophisticated." cbsnews.com/news/russian-h…
10/ Four days before Ukraine's 2014 election, "CyberBerkut, a group of pro-Russia hackers, infiltrated Ukraine’s central election computers & deleted key files, rendering the vote-tallying system inoperable." csmonitor.com/World/Passcode…
11/ In 2014, the U.S. & EU imposed sweeping sanctions against Russia in response to its aggression toward Ukraine. Ukraine and Russia have been at war ever since the events of 2014, which were precipitated in part by Manafort's pro-Russia work in Ukraine. theguardian.com/world/2014/jul…
12/ Manafort's pro-Russia work in Ukraine was funded by a Russian oligarch named Oleg Deripaska. When Manafort joined the Trump campaign in March 2016, however, he & Deripaska were on the skids. Deripaska claimed that Manafort owed him $20 million. businessinsider.com/court-document…
13/ Two weeks after joining the Trump campaign, Manafort emailed Deripaska's associate, Konstantin Kilimnik, who had worked for Manafort for years in Ukraine. Sure seems he wanted to use his position to settle his debt to Deripaska. theatlantic.com/politics/archi… 
14/ Manafort met w/ Kilimnick in May 2016. businessinsider.com/court-document…
15/ Manafort told Kilimnick on July 7, that he'd be happy to give Deripaska a private briefing. businessinsider.com/court-document…
16/ Later that month, the GOP's platform was re-written to eliminate references to arming Ukraine in its fight w/ Russia. “For decades, Republican doctrine has viewed Russia as a power to mistrust,” the L.A. Times wrote. “But in...Trump’s GOP, Moscow’s sins seem to matter less.”
17/ Source for post 16. latimes.com/world/la-na-po…
18/ On August 2, Manafort gave Kilimnik (the associate of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska) polling data. emptywheel.net/2019/02/25/on-…
19/ According to Mueller, the polling data was confidential, meaning not publicly available. businessinsider.com/manafort-lawye…
20/ Manafort officially left the Trump campaign in late August 2016 after a ledger surfaced regarding his pro-Russia work in Ukraine. apnews.com/article/20cfc7…
21/ I thought some of this context might be helpful. I was doing this research anyway for a project I'm working on.
22/ Great question. This was for his pro-Russia (pro-Yanukovych) work in Ukraine.
https://twitter.com/jessicayellin/status/879839165118005248
23/ Pretty amazing factoid.
https://twitter.com/anders_aslund/status/826210090390867968
24/ Swedish economist
https://twitter.com/anders_aslund/status/1197507872684494848
26/ “The documents also reveal a new $10 million loan from Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska to a company controlled by Manafort and his wife, issued at the start of the 69-year old politico’s work for Yanukovych’s Party of Regions in 2005-2006.” kyivpost.com/ukraine-politi…
27/ “The affidavit disclosed that Deripaska financially supported Manafort’s consulting work in Ukraine when it began in 2005 and in 2006.” businessinsider.com/court-document…
28/ At “the very beginning of his time working in Ukraine in 2003, Paul Manafort was in the employ of one Russia’s richest men, an aluminum magnate named Oleg Deripaska.”theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
29/ “We lazily describe many Russian oligarchs as residing in Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. But in the case of Deripaska, that closeness is a documented fact.”
30/ “From 2003 to 2008, Manafort and his firm worked for Deripaska across Europe—in Montenegro, Georgia, and Ukraine. Over that time, the consultant and the client also became business partners.”
30/ “The person who masterminded Yanukovych’s unlikely political comeback was not – as might have been expected – a Russian... It was an American, and his name was Paul Manafort...” theguardian.com/us-news/2016/a…
31/ Yanukovych had previously “won” Ukraine’s 2004 presidential election, but his win was nullified due to fraud after taped cell phone calls about the attempted coverup were leaked.
repository.ldufk.edu.ua/bitstream/3460…
repository.ldufk.edu.ua/bitstream/3460…
32/ Yanukovych’s opponent was poisoned with dioxin in that 2004 election as well. dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5…
33/ So Yanukovych needed a serious political makeover to “win” in 2010. Manafort was hired to give him that makeover. It worked, and Yanukovych promptly locked up his female opponent, Yulia Tymoshenko. And then moved on to destroy Ukraine’s pending trade deal with the EU.
35/ “The U.S. had placed sanctions against Rusal 4 its involvement in Russia’s annexation of Crimea. However, the Trump administration lifted those sanctions. A measure to keep...sanctions in place narrowly failed in the GOP-led Senate last year.” 8/19/20 wkyufm.org/post/report-ru…
36/ “Just weeks later Rusal announced it would invest $200 million in an aluminum startup located in an economically struggling region of McConnell’s home state.”
37/ “Prior to voting to permit the sanctions on Rusal to be lifted, McConnell spoke with lobbyists associated with the firm.”
38/ Rusal is Oleg Deripaska’s company. This is Deripaska.
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