Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and several other top Ukrainian officials reportedly embezzled hundreds of millions of dollars in American aid that was supposed to go toward purchasing diesel.
Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh suggests this amount could be as high as $400 million, alleging that the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) is aware of the ongoing corruption in Ukraine and the embezzlement of U.S. aid.
According to a source close to the C.I.A., Hersh said that Zelensky has been purchasing "discount diesel" from Russia with American money and hoarding the leftover funds.
He also claimed Ukrainian officials are "competing" to set up front companies to export contracts to private arms dealers worldwide.
C.I.A. Director William Burns confronted Zelensky on the issue in January, telling him that other officials were upset that he was "taking a larger share of the skim money that was going to the generals."
Hersh alleges that Zelensky is scheming the U.S.U.S. out of money to benefit himself and the country's energy funds.
"It is also unknown that Zelensky has been buying the fuel from Russia, the country with which it and Washington are at war. The Ukrainian president and many in his entourage have been skimming untold millions from the American dollars earmarked for diesel fuel payments," Hersh wrote.
The reporter pointed out that Ukraine's corruption is fast "approaching that of the Afghan war" despite no professional audit reports emerging.
To clarify, Zelensky has been buying discounted gas and oil from Russia using America's money, and Russian President Vladimir Putin is making millions from it.
According to the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, the U.S.U.S. has given Ukraine over $35 billion in aid since Russia's "unprovoked" attack.
Ukraine has quietly been known for its high level of corruption. A report published in 2016 by the watchdog group Transparency International revealed that nearly 42 percent of households admitted to paying bribes to access essential public services such as education or healthcare.