You sure about that?
2015 - Welcome to Ukraine, the most corrupt nation in Europe: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/04/welcome-to-the-...
2016 - Ukraine: Fantastically Corrupt: https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/uk...
Despite more than 10 years of activity of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), Ukraine is still considered one of the most corrupt countries of Europe. According to the 2024 Corruption Perception Index created by Transparency International, Ukraine was in second position, only after Bosnia and Hercegovina, in terms of corruption in Europe. In a recent survey carried out at national level, 91.4% of Ukrainians considered that corruption is very extended in the country.
We can't look to, say, France because France hasn't made any progress because it started as high-trust and fairly low corruption, whereas NABU actually does have results to look at.
For the US to improve its corruption problem, it needs to look to where there are actual results, and Ukraine is far better than either France or Bosnia and Hezegovina.
Why do you think there would be a "procurement process"? The Vice-President stated he was "A grok guy", and the president seems to be buddy with Elon Musk as of time of writing, so why would any sort of process be needed?
Congress has the authority to spend money, not the president. The way they do this is by telling the president how much to spend on what. It would mostly be impractical for them to detail every expense. So, they give more general directions and limits, and also impose requirements for how the president (or his deputies) go about it. This includes many many specific procurement procedures.
In practice, or by paper/pesky "laws"? Because sending $10 billion to organizations the president see fit, certainly makes that seem less true in practice.
If your home is invaded by burglars, is that also "two sides"?
There's no way this is a serious comment from a serious person.
> everything to do with the genocide of slavs
Confirmed, unmitigated botfarm horseshit.
You only consider my comments unmitigated botfarm horseshit, because you don't like what I'm saying. How exactly aren't slavs being genocided in Ukraine presently? Please explain? No sane president sacrifices an entire generation of working-class men and Russia and Ukraine have both done this. Both countries are run by psycopaths - but you ignore events leading up to the conflict that began in 2013 so you can paint the narrative that one side is good and the other is bad. Talk about unmitigated horseshit.
It literally isn't, no matter how many lies you make up about it. What politicians did in the 90s has no relevance today and pretending they're the same is, again, unmitigated horseshit from someone who thinks everyone will just nod with him when he screams that 1+1=3 now.
For the rest? "I know you are but what am I" should've been left in elementary school. What you're saying is bullshit. You're using words you don't understand because you think making things emotional will get you points, you're pretending that Ukraine is just throwing people away and not, you know, ensuring that it continues to exist as a country, and you don't even know what the fuck "events leading up to ... 2013" means, given that it's followed by "and then a hostile foreign country invaded. Twice."
Excuse me, but you're the one that started off with the insults, become emotional, adopted an aggressive tone and started swearing. Regardless, Ukraine won't exist without a working-age male population. I very much do understand what events transpired between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the present. I also don't view the situation in a vacuum nor do I pretend it's a simple case of bad guys versus good guys.
NABU in Ukraine has been far more effective at prosecuting corruption in Ukraine than any US organizations. They merely had to say they were going after Zelenskyy's number 2, and that man was out of the government, while the investigation continued! Meanwhile we have top level cabinet members in the US committing egregious perjury in front of Congress nearly every week, without any results.
I mention Ukraine because it's a country where they inherited a culture of mass government corruption from the Soviet Union, but have had success in making it less corrupt, through lots of citizen muckracking, and the US has moved to where the Ukraine was in the past.
The war in Ukraine is no exception, and has been in the works for decades (since the collapse of the soviet union at the very least, if not longer). IFM structural adjustments and World Bank loans destabilized the nation. When Ukraine wanted Russia to bankroll their loan instead of the IMF, a CIA-backed coup known as Euromaidan followed and kicked the entire conflict off in 2013/14. Again - I'm not excusing Russia here, obviously they escalated the situation with the invasion, but wars can't be viewed in a vacuum.
I know that most people don't want to discuss the actual reasons the war started and is being fought, and instead want to go with the reductionist and feel-good, Russia bad Ukraine good logic. As I said in another comment, there are no good guys in corrupt and evil wars and the war in Ukraine is definitely one of those.
So, what’s the answer? What would be acceptable conditions to end the war?
Acceptable conditions to end the war would be whatever prevents the sacrifice of Ukraine's working-age male population. Otherwise, as I also said in my previous comments, there will be no more Ukraine.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum [2] https://globalgeopolitics.co.uk/2025/12/06/how-a-non-binding...
It’s not complicated. I don’t care what you want to call it, they pretty clearly violated it.
What conditions would do that? You say they should end the war. How? What exactly would peace look like in your view? Or are you just vaguely wishing?
If you asked me how Putin could stop the war and preserve his country, I’d be able to answer that easily. But I have no idea how Zelenskyy could. Educate me.
It actually is quite complicated, but you choose to reduce the situation to black and white. There's unlikely to be peace by design - because the war isn't about Ukrainian sovereignty it's about genociding slavs on both sides of the conflict.
You clearly haven't read the book War is a Racket, which is why you don't understand that all wars - including the one in Ukraine - are fought to benefit a select few at the expense of the populations of the nations involved. Your proposed solution for stopping the war is a non-starter because that's not how wars work - it's delusional to think it would ever happen.
The fact that you can’t describe what Zelenskyy should do to stop the bleeding beyond a uselessly vague “sue for peace” tells me that your objection isn’t really Zelenskyy’s handling of the war, your objection is to the fact that he exists as the leader of a place that Russia wants.
Yes, if he actually wanted peace and to preserve the lives of his working-age male population he would concede some territory for some sort of security guarantee (not assurance). Instead he traps his entire working-age male population in the country and conscripts them off the street.
If Russia wanted peace and to preserve the lives of their working-age male population, they would be more willing to negotiate terms of surrender for Ukraine, or withdraw from the Ukraine completely.
Clearly neither side wants peace. So the war continues. Every single time peace talks happen, one side or the other sabotages them. This is by design.
> your objection isn’t really Zelenskyy’s handling of the war, your objection is to the fact that he exists as the leader of a place that Russia wants
No? The conflict is not about Russia wanting Ukraine or Ukrainian sovereignty as I have stated multiple times. It's about genociding slavs. There's a reason that negotiators on both sides of the table share something in common in terms of their identity.
Wars aren't organic, they are orchestrated by certain factions of people that want to create a society / world in their ideal order. The Ukraine conflict is part of their plan. It's been written and spoken about many times in recent decades. If you haven't figured that out yet and are still relying on the Putin bad logic to explain this conflict, I don't know what else I can tell you.
Do I think Zelenskyy suing for peace is at all realistic? No. You also asked a completely unrealistic question, because the goal isn't peace or territorial gain, it's genocide of slavs.
I'd reply to your comment directly, but HN is preventing me for whatever reason.
Hysterical reply though! I'm sure you said that elites trafficking children to an Island was crackpot bullshit too, until it wasn't. I understand that you need your worldview to fit into a tiny, neat little logical box that makes you feel virtuous and safe. Unfortunately for you, reality has other plans.
Those idiot assholes that have become heads of state are the public face of said shadowy cabal. The pandemic was just one facet of their plan, and the war in Ukraine is another. I also didn't mention the pandemic once, and the link I sent you to talks about far more than just the pandemic.
I'm not sure how you can discount a shadowy cabal after what we've learned recently with global pedophile rings of elites trafficking children, that include current and former heads of state. Maybe dots simply aren't connecting for you? The word realistic in relation to world affairs has lost a lot of meaning given current events, wouldn't you agree?
In the beast system, dystopian systems of surveillance monitor all social and financial activity and anyone who doesn't comply is debanked / ostracized / killed. This is why they're pushing for AI so hard - they need automated systems to shut off people's access to everything. The people perpetrating this plot are Luciferians, thus the obsession with AI (Lucifer thought he could outdo God and with AI they think they can build a better human than God - which is why transhumanism is also being pushed so hard lately).
Unpacking the plot requires knowing the history of mystery schools, secret societies, ruling families and their bloodlines / ancestry, historical events and their players etc... The perpetrators are the Jesuits, Zionists, Freemasons, Skull & Bones members, Fabian society members, etc... Basically all the psychopaths that drag us into endless wars, occupy positions of power in our governments, and belong to secret clubs are the ones involved in carrying out this great work, as they call it. And it's the same shadowy cabal that was raping kids on that island. They've written about their plans and past actions, most people just don't read or care to investigate how or what these people think and believe in. They even talk about their plans in front of us knowing most people won't pay attention or connect dots.
Why do they want to do this? Because they are a death cult that is obsessed with the Book of Revelation and want to usher in the Noahide new world order - the same new world order that US presidents and other politicians talk about (look up how many times both Bushes or Obama used this phrase). The same Noahide new world order that implements the beast system as prophesied in their favorite book.
Why do you think society keeps getting more and more Orwellian? Why do you think certain countries (like Russia and Israel presently) are more and more brazen about killing mass numbers of people in illegal wars (which is the modern form of human sacrifice) and not worried about facing any repercussions? Why do you think essentially no one in any government (besides the UK, and who knows if they'll actually really do anything in the long run) is doing anything about the pedo island besides talking about it?
You obviously don't need to believe me, but please do yourself a favor and do your own research if you're so inclined.
The meat grinder only exists at Putin's insistence. He can make that stop any time he wants to.
How does one prove your argument? It seems you are just lazily both sides-ing a complex and not easy to compare situation.
How does one compare trump's 10 billion dollar theft of the taxpayer to anything ukraine does? Putin is more known for his wild, unfettered corruption. Why not compare him to the ukraine?
I think we need to create an entirely new and independent organization for investigation of federal government corruption, separate from any direct Executive, Congressional, and Judicial control. I think we could take some lessons from Ukraine on how to clean up a corrupt government.