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Ukraine did not cause our problems. Our government caused our problems.

There was never a reason to push Ukraine into NATO. It was done by the US and NATO members to push Russia into a corner. But, Vlad Putin wasn't going to be pushed. We see the results.

Here is Pat Buchanon's opinion. If Pat is for it I am 99% of the time on board as well.

kwg

Pat Buchanon's take on the Ukrainian war.

Opinion: Did We Provoke Putin’s War in Ukraine? – Pat Buchanan

When Russia’s Vladimir Putin demanded that the U.S. rule out Ukraine as a future member of the NATO alliance, the U.S. archly replied: NATO has an open-door policy. Any nation, including Ukraine, may apply for membership and be admitted. We’re not changing that.

In the Bucharest declaration of 2008, NATO had put Ukraine and Georgia, ever farther east in the Caucasus, on a path to membership in NATO and coverage under Article 5 of the treaty, which declares that an attack on any one member is an attack on all.

Unable to get a satisfactory answer to his demand, Putin invaded and settled the issue. Neither Ukraine nor Georgia will become members of NATO. To prevent that, Russia will go to war, as Russia did last night.

Putin did exactly what he had warned us he would do.

Whatever the character of the Russian president, now being hotly debated here in the USA, he has established his credibility.

When Putin warns that he will do something, he does it.

Thirty-six hours into this Russia-Ukraine war, potentially the worst in Europe since 1945, two questions need to be answered: How did we get here? And where do we go from here?

How did we get to where Russia — believing its back is against a wall and the United States, by moving NATO ever closer, put it there — reached a point where it chose war with Ukraine rather than accepting the fate and future it believes the West has in store for Mother Russia?

Consider. Between 1989 and 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev let the Berlin Wall be pulled down, Germany be reunited and all the “captive nations” of Eastern Europe go free.

Having collapsed the Soviet empire, Gorbachev allowed the Soviet Union to dissolve itself into 15 independent nations. Communism was allowed to expire as the ruling ideology of Russia, the land where Leninism and Bolshevism first took root in 1917.

Gorbachev called off the Cold War in Europe by removing all of the causes on Moscow’s side of the historic divide.

Putin, a former KGB colonel, came to power in 1999 after the disastrous decade long rule of Boris Yeltsin, who ran Russia into the ground.

In that year, 1999, Putin watched as America conducted a 78-day bombing campaign on Serbia, the Balkan nation that had historically been a protectorate of Mother Russia.

That year, also, three former Warsaw Pact nations, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, were brought into NATO.

Against whom were these countries to be protected by U.S. arms and the NATO alliance, the question was fairly asked.

The question seemed to be answered fully in 2004, when Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania and Bulgaria were admitted into NATO, a grouping that included three former republics of the USSR itself, as well as three more former Warsaw Pact nations.

Then, in 2008, came the Bucharest declaration that put Georgia and Ukraine, both bordering on Russia, on a path to NATO membership.

Georgia, the same year, attacked its seceded province of South Ossetia, where Russian troops were acting as peacekeepers, killing some.

This triggered a Putin counterattack through the Roki Tunnel in North Ossetia that liberated South Ossetia and moved into Georgia all the way to Gori, the birthplace of Stalin. George W. Bush, who had pledged “to end tyranny in our world,” did nothing. After briefly occupying part of Georgia, the Russians departed but stayed as protectors of the South Ossetians.

The U.S. establishment has declared this to have been a Russian war of aggression, but an EU investigation blamed Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili for starting the war.

In 2014, a democratically elected pro-Russian president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, was overthrown in Kyiv and replaced by a pro-Western regime. Rather than lose Sevastopol, Russia’s historic naval base in Crimea, Putin seized the peninsula and declared it Russian territory.

Teddy Roosevelt stole Panama with similar remorse.

Which brings us to today.

Whatever we may think of Putin, he is no Stalin. He has not murdered millions or created a gulag archipelago.

Nor is he “irrational,” as some pundits rail. He does not want a war with us, which would be worse than ruinous to us both.

Putin is a Russian nationalist, patriot, traditionalist and a cold and ruthless realist looking out to preserve Russia as the great and respected power it once was and he believes it can be again.

But it cannot be that if NATO expansion does not stop or if its sister state of Ukraine becomes part of a military alliance whose proudest boast is that it won the Cold War against the nation Putin has served all his life.

President Joe Biden almost hourly promises, “We are not going to war in Ukraine.” Why would he then not readily rule out NATO membership for Ukraine, which would require us to do something Biden himself says we Americans, for our own survival, should never do: go to war with Russia?

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I have not researched this, but it seems strange to me. Why has the US opposed Nordstream II, but seems fine with the Russians selling natural gas to Europe if it is piped across Ukraine? My understanding is that Ukraine earns some type of a fee if the pipeline across their country is used - rightfully so.

So if the gas is all coming from Russia, why are we so concerned that Ukraine continues to be the middle man?

I am not arguing the risks of Europe relying on Russia as a fuel source (or the potential benefits of trade in improving relations), but question why it must traverse the Ukraine.

I can see how people of good will want to keep the American economic gravy train going. But I can also see how that system has enabled great evil with it's nearly unlimited money. I don't think any other economic system could be as prosperous for one country this side of naked colonialism absolutely raping colonies.

Bingo

My fear is that we are going to loose one of our guys in that country, the MSM will jump all over it...and then we are going to be in deep sh-t.

Anymore!

Just a case of history repeating itself. Unfortunately, nukes have taken all the fun out of war. There have been SO many similar instances, just too many to mention here. Russians have been paranoid about borders since Ivan The Terrible and beyond. During the Imperial Era, every time one turned around there was a border dispute somewhere and I mean everywhere. NATO in my opinion pretty much outlived it's usefulness after the collapse of the Soviet Union. NATO should have been replaced by that mess called the EU.

Expand it to thirty one nations was stupid. Hell, why not ask the Russians in as a leverage against China? Treaties with Dictators? We've had a bunch and continue to do so and Ukraine was not exactly Switzerland, it was (and is) corrupt as hell. Having said all that, I cannot help it for feel very bad for the Ukrainians and yes I am completely on board with supplying the with weapons.. There is just no way the Russians can take and hold Ukraine, not even close. Sure, they'll take the cities, etc, but it will be a complete mess for them. All they are is a gas station with nukes.

Ukraine is nothing to what is possibly looming over the horizon..

Ok, here is what I have gathered so far:

1) Soros is bad. I agree.

2) MSM lies. I agree

3) The Ukrainian government is corrupt. I don't dispute that, but I'd like to see the proof.

4) Putin is bad. I agree.

5) Biden is.....well, bad, inept, corrupt, and whatever else. I agree.

6) American blood should not be shed over this war. I agree. But that was not the question I asked. I am wondering why 'fire members are not only refusing to support Ukraine, but going to the trouble of defending Russia's invasion.

7) Putin's actions are justifiable from the Russian perspective. I disagree. Putin knows the West is soft and does not want WWIII. Putin also knows that Article 5 only applies to if a member is attacked. So having Ukraine join NATO would not result in NATO attacking Russia if Ukraine (or any other NATO member) attacked first. The only way NATO would attack Russia is if Russia attacked first. So why doesn't Putin want any other countries joining NATO? Well, it seems like it is because he wants to invade and conquer them.




Still waiting for someone to connect the dots between #1-3. Just giving your opinion on here is not "connecting the dots" for me. I'd like to see the actual evidence.

I still have a hard time swallowing how a Russian victory is a good thing here. Last I checked, Putin was pretty tight with China.

Yeah, I do discount Q. Sorry, but Q was not correct about a LOT of things. Never mind the other reasons, which I know will be immediately discounted by Q's disciples.

"3) The Ukrainian government is corrupt. I don't dispute that, but I'd like to see the proof."

Check HB's and his fathers & uncles bank accounts for this one.

Burisma

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/ukraines-deadly-gamble

Not necessarily a reason to support Russia, but a thought provoking read.

So Biden never gave Ukraine and Zelenskiy aid?

So what's been going on in the Ukraine, Donbass region since 2014? And how many billions in aid money was given to Ukraine and what happened to that aid money? Who was VP of the US when we sent all that aid to the Ukraine? Wasn't Biden supposed to ensure that money sent to Ukraine be used to help the citizens?

Why is Ukraine such an impoverished country now compared to other former soviet republics? Why is there a Neo NAZi (AZOV) brigade active and operating freely in Ukraine and supported by Zelenskiy? Did Zelenskiy allow the AZOV brigade to operate freely and target civilians in the Donbass region in violation of the Minsk accords? Did NATO step in help? Who bank rolled Zelenskiy's elections? Where are these patriotic billionaires and their friends and families who bank rolled Zelenskiy now? Are they fighting for their country? Last I read they fled and are all vacationing Switzerland in their villas. Why is there a warrant of arrest for Zelenskiy's puppet master ?

https://worldview.stratfor.com/situ...y-and-oligarch-kolomoisky-pandora-papers

Why did Zelensky violate the Minsk accords?

How much US aid money did this hero Zelenskiy steal? He's reportedly a billionaire now. Great hero he is

Just a few simple questions.

I suspect a lot of people view the new improved Putin as more of a libertarian nationalist.

And they view the new and unimproved West as being co-opted by Bolsheviks....

180 deg. from the old narrative

You limit our choices as to which side to choose. Russia or the Ukraine. I'd like to add one. The United States. This is being played out just like our choices for political candidates, in this hand is a rattlesnake and in this hand is a copperhead. These are your only choices. Time to change that.

Bottom line is we sent billions to Ukraine and they squandered it and now are asking for more.

Squander is putting it very mildly.

Fück Ukraine. Sorry not sorry. Sow/reap

https://worldview.stratfor.com/situ...y-and-oligarch-kolomoisky-pandora-papers





Zelensky's Ukraine, Where The Pandora Papers Hit Hardest
The global probe of offshore accounts around the world strike at the heart of Kiev's current government and power structure of a ruling class that rose to power on the promise of fighting corruption, including the television-star-turned-President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Photo of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a crowd
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, targeted by the Pandora Papers leak.

S
KIEV — Nowhere could the the revelations from the Pandora Papers investigation hit harder than in Ukraine. The discovery of offshore accounts strike at the heart of the current government and power structure of a ruling class that rose to power on the promise of fighting corruption, including the television-star-turned-President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The worldwide probe, prompted by a massive leak to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), has included work by journalists from the Ukrainian media Slidstvо.Info, which connected the shady financial dealings of Zelensky's television production company Studio Kvartal 95 to the Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky. Slidstvo found that the laundered money passed through the Cyprus branch of Kolomoisky-owned Privatbank, according to law enforcement officers.

More than 600 journalists from all over the world worked on the Pandora Papers project for the past year. Among the millions of documents of offshore registrars are the names of some of the most powerful figures in Ukraine. Ivan Bakanov, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Serhii Shafir, the chief aide to the president, and the President Zelensky himself are all there.



Igor Kolomoisky, the billionaire behind the President
But, first let's rewind the tape: For this is a story about the actor and head of Studio Kvartal 95, who played the president in the series and won in real life. Volodymyr Zelensky's successful show business career was created in Ukraine through a hidden financial network of offshore companies.

Nine years ago, the popular Kvartal 95 goes to TV channel 1+1. Their shows and programs are hits on the channel owned by Igor Kolomoisky, who will later support Zelensky and the team not only as entertainers but also as politicians. Today, Kolomoisky is a person of interest in investigations in Ukraine, Britain, and the United States.

Nobody wants to talk about the secret network of offshore companies.
According to the Pandora Papers, millions from Kolomoisky went not only to the accounts of Ukrainian companies close to Zelensky and his associates. The money also went where there was warm weather and lower taxes. That year, when Kvartal began to cooperate with the oligarch, key people of the company registered several companies on distant islands. The network was assisted by the offshore registrar Fidelity and Ukrainian lawyer Yurii Azarov, whose signature is on all key documents.



Photo of \u200bUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaking at a news conference in Kiev, Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a news conference in Kiev, Ukraine


Irina Yakovleva/ TASS/ ZUMA



Maltex Multicapital is revealed
At the heart of the network is the previously unknown company Maltex Multicapital, reveals Slidstvo. It is equally divided between the companies of Volodymyr Zelensky, brothers Serhii and Borys Shefirs and Andrii Yakovlev. The trust declaration was signed by the current head of the Security Service of Ukraine Ivan Bakanov. His company was the nominal owner of Maltex. The names of the real owners were safely hidden in the vault.

If we take a closer look at how the Kvartal business is structured, we will see that the products are created and shown mainly in Ukraine. At the same time, transactions are made through foreign companies. Accordingly, taxes on these transactions do not go to the Ukrainian budget.

A little later, the co-owner of Kvartal 95, Serhii Shafir, stated that Zelensky had left the business. On March 13, 2019, amid the presidential race, a lawyer working for the firms of Zelensky and his partners, Yurii Azarov, signed the document. It is a transfer of shares to Maltex, which is equally divided between the offshore leaders of Kvartal 95. The firm of Serhii Shafir, the future chief aide to the president, received a quarter of Maltex's ownership free of charge from Zelensky's firm in Belize. The day after the inauguration, Zelensky appointed Serhii Shafir as chief aide to the president of Ukraine.

What destiny awaits Zelensky? And Kolomoisky?
On April 25, 2019, a few weeks after the transfer of Zelenskyy's share to Serhii Shafir, the same lawyer Yurii Azarov signed another document stating that Maltex intends to pay dividends to Zelensky's offshore. Surprisingly, his offshore company no longer owned a stake in this firm.

Cases involving high-ranking civil servants are being investigated by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau. NABU detectives are also investigating crimes related to money laundering. The investigation believes that the former owners, in particular Igor Kolomoisky and Hennadii Boholyubov, could have caused billions in losses to the state. But the Security Service of Ukraine was unable to calculate the amount of damage and the case got stuck. The current General Prosecutor refused to answer journalists' questions about the Privatbank case.



Risk of U.S. jail time
What destiny awaits Zelensky? And Kolomoisky? For the latter, this week Kolomoiskyi in the United States, where his fate risks being the same as former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko: to wind up in an American prison.

For Zelensky, nobody wants to talk about the secret network of offshore companies. Only Borys Shafir, the co-founder of Kvartal 95, responded to a few of our questions. He, unlike his partners, did not go into politics, and now is the owner of a significant part of the offshore business of Kvartal.

"Bakanov was our financial director, he arranged the financial schemes of our company. And honestly, I'm not ready to answer you now," said Borys Shafir. "Maybe I'm the owner."

Zelenskiy sure profited off of all of his best friend's scams



Months after Ukraine oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky and his partners abandoned an Ohio steel plant and left scores of workers without jobs, financial crime experts at Deutsche Bank shot up a troubling alert.

Millions of dollars were flowing into its U.S. headquarters for a business owned by the oligarch, but something wasn’t right.

Detecting signs of suspicious money — large round numbers from high-risk jurisdictions — the bank could have refused the transfers or even dropped the client.

But it didn’t do either.


The site of a fire at the former Warren Steel facility that occurred on Aug. 11, 2021, photographed on Sept. 28, 2021, in Warren, Ohio. The factory was opened in 1939 and was shut down in 2016.
Michael Sallah
‘High and dry’: Oligarch’s Ohio factory goes up in smoke
Despite warnings from its own workers, Deutsche allowed the money to keep pouring into its coffers six years ago while the oligarch and his partners secretly amassed a steel fortune in the United States.


Ihor Kolomoisky, left, in a 2014 file photo at his office in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine.
(Mauricio Lima/The New York Times)

The Justice Department has been investigating Mr. Kolomoisky and others in what prosecutors allege was a vast scheme to steal millions of dollars from Ukraine’s largest bank and move the money into the U.S. to buy steel mills and skyscrapers.

But recently unsealed federal court records show U.S. banks moved far more money than what was reported by the U.S. government — billions of dollars — for companies under the control of the power broker in patterns that went unchecked for nearly a decade.

Between 2006 and 2015, more than $4.45 billion was transferred without any apparent effort by the banks or the government to stem the movement of dollars as the oligarch and his partners acquired an enormous real estate portfolio.

“These are cascading failures,” said Tom Cardamone, president and CEO of Global Financial Integrity, a Washington, D.C., research group that tracks money laundering.

“It’s an astonishing amount of money. You would think that anyone just doing a spot check, someone would have picked up on the tempo of the transactions, the big round numbers.”

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has spent more than a year examining thousands of records — including internal bank documents and previously sealed court records — and conducted dozens of interviews that culminated in several stories about federal prosecutors’ first-ever laundering investigation of the U.S. steel industry.


Downtown Cleveland photographed on Monday, Dec. 20, 2021, in Cleveland.
Michael Sallah and Ashley Murray
PG SPECIAL REPORT | With shadowy money, Ukraine oligarch became Cleveland’s biggest landlord
But the new records released last month from federal court in New York provide an unprecedented look into the amount of money tied to the oligarch that was moving through the country — including thousands of transactions carried out by Deutsche, Germany’s largest bank with a sizable U.S. arm.



In the government’s battle against money laundering, banks are supposed to be the front line of defense by alerting the government when it spots suspicious patterns and, in some cases, refusing the transactions, says the U.S. Justice Department.

But records show that year after year, the transfers continued while prosecutors say Mr. Kolomoisky orchestrated a scheme that nearly bankrupted Ukraine’s largest financial institution and sent the nation’s economy into a recession.

Left trail of disaster

One of the richest men in Ukraine, the 59-year-old oligarch is accused of setting up shell companies, cleaning the money through U.S. properties and ultimately leaving a trail of boarded-up buildings, failed steel facilities, and millions in unpaid property taxes, court records show.

While money was transferred into the country for one of the oligarch’s companies, his operators shut down Warren Steel in Ohio in 2016, owing millions in property taxes, utility bills and supplies.

For weeks, workers were left without medical coverage because the insurance premium wasn’t paid, records and interviews show. “A lot of people left here very angry,” said Nancy Waselich, a former IT manager for the factory. “People bled for this place.”

Though no one so far has been criminally charged, prosecutors have filed legal actions to seize properties that they allege were bought with money stolen from the Ukraine bank, where Mr. Kolomoisky was a major shareholder.

The oligarch lost control of the institution in late 2016, when it was nationalized by the government, which suspected massive fraud.


Warren Steel in Ohio was shut down in 2016, with millions in unpaid property taxes, utility bills and supplies.
(Andrew Rush/Post-Gazette)

Mr. Kolomoisky, who was banned last year from entering the United States by the State Department over corrupt practices, has not responded to repeated interview requests. His lawyer, Michael J. Sullivan, did not return phone messages.

Lawyers for two of Mr. Kolomoisky’s partners in the U.S. who are accused in the government forfeiture cases of taking part in the scheme say there is no evidence to show they did anything wrong.

Mordechai “Motti” Korf and Uriel Laber, who live in South Florida, are “legitimate investors,” said New York attorney Mark Ressler. Neither has been “engaged in money laundering of any kind, and they have no knowledge of anyone else doing so,” he said. “Any allegations against Mr. Korf and Mr. Laber arise from Ukrainian political disputes they have nothing to do with.”

Lawyers for the two men dispute the U.S. government’s claims the money was stolen from the Ukraine bank, saying it came from loans that were legitimate and have been upheld by the Ukraine courts in multiple decisions.

Several Ukraine legal experts interviewed by the Post-Gazette say, however, that those court decisions were reached during a campaign by the oligarch to file hundreds of cases in search of favorable courts and to withdraw from other courts to avoid losing.

Last year, the Ukrainian government took action when the parliament — at the prodding of the International Monetary Fund — enacted what’s known as the “anti-Kolomoisky law” that bans him from ever gaining control over his former bank again.


For weeks, workers for Warren Steel were left without medical coverage because the insurance premium wasn’t paid, records and interviews show. “A lot of people left here very angry,” said Nancy Waselich, a former IT manager for the factory. “People bled for this place.”
(Andrew Rush/Post-Gazette)

‘You pull the plug’

It’s unclear from the new records the total amount of money that moved through the United States, because Mr. Kolomoisky and others shifted funds back and forth between their companies in a dizzying series of transactions.

But the sheer number of transfers — 5,222 in eight years — between companies tied to the oligarch should have prompted Deutsche and other banks to end the transactions, said Paul Pelletier, a former senior federal prosecutor who led the Justice Department’s fraud unit.

“You pull the plug,” said Mr. Pelletier, who once prosecuted money laundering cases in Miami. “The purpose of due diligence is to do red light, green light — but there was no red light. There were apparently no cops on the beat.”

The court records, which were released after the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press pushed for them, show the money coursing through the banks as the oligarch and his associates were secretly taking ownership of steel mills and office towers, 22 properties in all.

It’s also unclear from the records the purpose of the transactions and whether some of the money was generated from the steel mills when they were operating or from the oligarch’s global metals operations.

But prosecutors have identified at least nine of the companies that they claim were used to launder hundreds of millions of dollars, court records show.



Deutsche Bank, which has long maintained a U.S. headquarters in New York, declined to answer questions from the Post-Gazette, saying in an email the bank is not legally allowed to talk about its customers and internal security decisions.

In 2020, the bank acknowledged “past weaknesses” and that it “learnt from its mistakes” and has invested millions to strengthen its internal systems to detect laundering and other crimes. “We are a different bank now,” it said.

It was during an explosive court battle six years ago between the oligarch and a former business partner that the layers of Mr. Kolomoisky’s operation were stripped back and showed the massive amounts of money pouring into the U.S.

Open critical records

Through an investigation, the ex-partner’s lawyers discovered money transfers for hundreds of millions of dollars cascading into the country for companies related to Mr. Kolomoisky — 3,103 transactions by Deutsche alone, court records show.

Deutsche and other banks, along with lawyers for Mr. Kolomoisky, pushed to seal the information, saying it exposed confidential information about the banks’ customers.

Not until an effort by the Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press and BuzzFeed News to press for data in federal court in the Southern District of New York in 2020 did the judge agree last month to unseal records of the transfer summaries.

Year after year, the money was coming into the country through Deutsche and other banks, with the oligarch the largest recipient of the transactions, totaling $1.25 billion, followed by his fellow Ukrainian billionaire, Gennadiy Bogolyubov — about $900 million — a partner in the U.S. real estate deals.

“
“The purpose of due diligence is to do red light, green light — but there was no red light. There were apparently no cops on the beat.”
— Paul Pelletier, former senior federal prosecutor
The records also show $174.5 million moved through Optima Ventures, a company that prosecutors say was used to launder money and buy properties, including an office park in Dallas that was once the headquarters of Mary Kay Cosmetics.

Another $96.3 million moved through Optima Acquisitions, a company that prosecutors say was used to clean money and buy steel mills.

Former employees who worked at the Ohio steel factory say they’re surprised at the amount of money flowing into the U.S. because of the difficulties they faced in getting basic parts and bills paid on time.

Just after the shutdown of the factory in 2016, money was owed to the gas and electric companies and the federal government for a fine that had been imposed for workplace safety violations.

“We have not paid for our copy machines which are about to be repossessed. We have not paid for our phones, which are our only mode of communication with the plant,” factory general manager John Scheel wrote in an email to company executives. “We have not paid for the liability insurance for Warren Steel Holdings. We have not paid the quarterly installment for our OSHA fine that we negotiated.”


This secret Deutsche Bank suspicious activity report (SAR) was filed in 2016 after the bank's fraud experts found suspicious money flowing into the institution for an aviation company owned by Ukraine oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky. The US bank office detected red flags: large, round numbers from high-risk jurisdictions and millions of dollars transferred between companies with no obvious commercial relationships. These documents, which are kept from public view, were sent to the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) — among three such reports sent that year about the company — but the bank moved the money anyway.

Red flags

After years of transferring money into the country for the oligarch, Deutsche Bank filed at least three suspicious activity reports in 2016, finding patterns that raised alerts about incoming funds for one of his aviation companies.

The bank noted in one of the reports that Mr. Kolomoisky was a former Ukraine provincial governor who was suspected of widespread fraud in his country — charges he has denied. The bank’s fraud experts also questioned the legitimacy of millions in payments between companies with no known purpose for the transactions.

The reports, shared with the Post-Gazette by BuzzFeed News, show the bank started to cut its ties with the company, but not before it moved about $215 million that year. Mr. Cardamone of Global
Financial Integrity said the move came too late. “That’s bolting the door behind the horse,” he said.

While the U.S. government’s case against the oligarch and his partners has gained wide publicity, the role of Deutsche in moving the money remains one of the least known elements of the entire operation, said experts interviewed by the Post-Gazette.


The U.S. headquarters of Deutsche Bank in New York in a 2019 file.
(Jeenah Moon/The New York Times)

As a correspondent bank taking in money from overseas, Deutsche was a gateway.

“They could not have used the U.S. banking system [without Deutsche],” said Thomas Nollner, a former regulator for the Comptroller of the Currency. “The bank should have done its due diligence.”

Mr. Kolomoisky was a lightning rod of controversy in Ukraine at the time, especially after he dispatched his own armed militia into a government oil company in 2015 during a dispute.

“He’s high risk. He’s a politically exposed person. This should not have gotten by someone’s scrutiny,” Mr. Nollner said.

Tim Ryan, a Democratic U.S. House member whose district includes the shuttered Ohio steel factory, said in an interview last year that any analysis of the case and the damage that it caused needs to include the pivotal role of the bank.

“Especially in this case, we need to see if they met their responsibilities. … We need to know if they did — or they didn’t,” he said.

A spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, said that Deutsche Bank has had a long history of regulatory violations but declined to discuss any potential inquiries by Congress.


Committee Chair Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, speaks during a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2022, in Washington.
(Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via AP)

Mr. Pelletier, the former Justice Department fraud unit chief, said the movement of money in such large amounts raises questions about why warnings were not issued sooner.

“It’s low-hanging fruit. It’s a lot of money,” he said. “Shouldn’t we have a system that reacts quicker to that kind of money?”

He said because Mr. Kolomoisky is considered a politically exposed person and the money was arriving from offshore, it required the bank to perform an even higher level of due diligence.

“The burden is to show that the money is [suspicious],” he said. “What did it show? It doesn’t look like anyone was doing heightened due diligence.”

He said what also distinguishes the case from other laundering investigations is that the money didn’t go to the familiar havens of Miami and New York. It went to steel factories in small towns.

“It harmed real hard-working Americans in Middle America,” he said.

Washington D.C. Bureau Chief Ashley Murray contributed, and Ukraine investigative reporter Tanya Kozyreva reported from Kyiv. Michael Sallah: msallahpost-gazette.com; Twitter: @mikesallah7.