Orwell's Hole

Check out today's latest news from Ukraine at the Kyiv Post. I don't know about you, but I find it telling that Kyiv Post gets it's Ukrainian news from the New York Times!

But just what that is telling you, I'm not sure. The Post is the plaything of Mohammad Zahoor, a London-based Ukrainian oligarch of Pakistani origin who, in the style of an entire generation of oligarchs, parlayed being in the right place at the right time when the Soviet Union collapsed, into a fortune in Donetsk steel mills.

Well, you know how it is with this darned internet; one thing leads to another, and before you know it, the day is half over, and you're reading the National Endowment for Democracy's 2013 annual report on where in Ukraine that US government funded Non-Governmental Organization invested the American tax-payers money in that pivitol pre-Maidan year.

It's a lengthy list, but here's my favorite;

Center for International Private EnterpriseDeveloping Market Economy
$357,707
Building Advocacy MomentumTo build the capacity of Ukrainian business associations and improve the entrepreneurial climate through coalition-based advocacy. CIPE will build the skills of reform-minded business leaders through training seminars, workshops and small grants designed to stimulate advocacy on targeted issues. CIPE will also support partner business associations to advocate for improvements in the entrepreneurial environment with a focus on reducing corruption and improving public-private dialogue.

I think it's hilarious that a country that has spawned a alphabet's worth of super-rich from Akhmetov to Zahoor would need something called the "Center for International Private Enterprise," financed by the US government!

You don't imagine that might be some CIA front, do you?

Why does Kyiv Post, Ukraine's foremost English language news source, get its Ukrainian news from the US and France?

While I hate to be cynical, maybe it's because from its very beginnings it's been a conduit for pro-NATO, anti-Russian propaganda.

The Kyiv Post pops up prominently whenever I google "news from Ukraine". I assumed it was a serious Ukrainian news site. Little did I realize that it's a newspaper totally founded and funded by Western interests, and boasts a circulation of about 11,000 in a country of 40,000,000 plus.

Ergo, this is not a serious news source.

That first crossed my mind when I was visiting the Kyiv Post website today. It struck me that their top stories all came from the New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal, or AFP. How is such a thing even possible? Ukraine has been one of the hottest of hot spots world-wide for more than six months... how is it possible that a Ukrainian news site needs to get its Ukrainian news from New York and France?

Maybe because it's been a false front fake news outlet all along, with no roots and no legitimate Ukraine credibility, but a convenient way for the "colour revolution" democracy promoters in Washington to sway international public opinion.