Jaresco, who served in the U.S. Embassy in Kiev after the collapse of the Soviet Union, has said that Western NIS Enterprise Fund was "funded by the U.S. government to invest in small and medium-sized businesses in Ukraine and Moldova -- in essence, to 'kick-start' the private equity industry in the region."
While the ultimate success of that U.S.-funded endeavor may still be unknown, it is clear that the U.S. AID money did "kick-start" Jaresco's career in equity investments and put her on the path that has now taken her to the job of Ukraine's new finance minister. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko cited her experience in these investment fields to explain his unusual decision to bring in an American to run Ukraine's finances and grant her citizenship.
A Big Investment
The substantial U.S. government sum invested in Jaresco's WNISEF-based equity fund also sheds new light on how it was possible for Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland to tally up U.S. spending on Ukraine since it became independent in 1991 and reach the astounding figure of "more than $5 billion," which she announced to a meeting of U.S.-Ukrainian business leaders last December as she was pushing for "regime change" in Kiev.
The figure was so high that it surprised some of Nuland's State Department colleagues. Several months later -- after a U.S.-backed coup had overthrown Yanukovych and pitched Ukraine into a nasty civil war -- Under Secretary of State for Public Affairs Richard Stengel cited the $5 billion figure as "ludicrous" Russian disinformation after hearing the number on Russia's RT network.
Stengel, a former Time magazine editor, didn't seem to know that the figure had come from a fellow senior State Department official.
Nuland's "more than $5 billion" figure did seem high, even if one counted the many millions of dollars spent over the past couple of decades by U.S. AID (which puts its contributions to Ukraine at $1.8 billion) and the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy, which has financed hundreds of projects for supporting Ukrainian political activists, media operatives and non-governmental organizations.
But if one looks at the $150 million largesse bestowed on Natalie Jaresco, you can begin to understand the old adage that a hundred million dollars here and a hundred million dollars there soon adds up to real money.
Those payments over more than two decades to various people and entities in Ukraine also constitute a major investment in Ukrainian operatives who are now inclined to do the U.S. government's bidding.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
