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Mr. Yanukovych was driven from office in the Maidan Revolution of 2014, after having stolen, according to the current Ukrainian government, at least $1 billion. In the years before his fall, Mr. Manafort took lavish payments to burnish the image of Mr. Yanukovych and the Party of Regions in Washington, even as the party acknowledged only very modest spending.

In 2012, for example, the party reported annual expenses of about $11.1 million, based on the exchange rate at the time, excluding overhead. For the same year, Mr. Manafort reported income of $12.1 million from the party, the Justice Department filing shows.

In 2013, the Party of Regions reported expenses of $3.7 million, while Mr. Manafort reported receiving payments of $4.5 million.

Handwritten ledgers that surfaced last year indicated that the party had actually spent about $2 billion over the past decade or so, much or most of it illegally. Some outlays like payments to an election official possibly amounted to criminal bribery.

Mr. Manafort has not been charged with breaking any laws regarding the reporting of income derived from his efforts on behalf of the party. The disclosures cap lengthy negotiations between Mr. Manafort and officials at the Justice Department, which monitors the activities of Americans who work on behalf of foreign political parties and governments.

In a statement, Mr. Manaforts spokesman, Jason Maloni, suggested that the Party of Regions was accountable for the contradiction between the two disclosures.

Any questions about the reporting obligations of the Party of Regions should be directed to those within the party responsible for such reporting, he said in a statement. Mr. Manaforts work in Ukraine was widely known and the firm was paid only for the work it performed. In fact, just last month Ukraine officials indicated that there is no proof of illicit payments.

Though documents discovered after the 2014 revolution show the partys coffers were padded with donations from Ukraines ultrawealthy steel and natural gas tycoons, it tried to keep up a populist image and declared only a modest, even minuscule, annual budget.

It means either Manafort is lying, or the Party of Regions was lying, Serhiy Leshchenko, an investigative journalist and a member of Parliament who has been critical of Mr. Manaforts work in Ukraine, said in an interview.

A Ukrainian investigation of this discrepancy is not likely. The Party of Regions is now disbanded, and prosecutors are looking into far more serious crimes than campaign finance filing errors.

Moreover, at the time the party made its declarations, filing a false campaign finance report was considered an administrative offense akin to a parking ticket and punishable by no more than a fine of a few hundred dollars, said Ostap Kuchma, a party finance analyst at the anticorruption group Chesno.

Mr. Manaforts reports to the Justice Department do not cover the entire period he worked in Ukraine. Last summer, The New York Times reported that the partys handwritten ledgers showed $12.7 million in undisclosed payments designated for Mr. Manaforts firm from 2007 to 2012.

Anticorruption officials in Ukraine assert that the payments were part of an illegal off-the-books system. Mr. Manafort, who resigned from his campaign post shortly after the article appeared, has denied receiving any cash, and state prosecutors in Ukraine have not accused him of wrongdoing.

Ukraines chief anticorruption prosecutor, Nazar Kholodnytsky, reiterated that assessment last month, telling Ukrainian television that ledger entries provided no proof of Mr. Manaforts having receiving illegal payments.

But the investigation into the accounting book, including the entries mentioning Mr. Manafort, is still open, and recently shifted from one branch of the prosecutors office to another, Serhiy Gorbatyuk, the prosecutor in charge of the case, said in an interview.

The Party of Regions was spending a lot of cash, to bribe voters and for illegal advertising, Daria M. Kaleniuk, the executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, said in an interview. Manafort took the money to whitewash its reputation in the West.

Iuliia Mendel contributed reporting.

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Huge Manafort Payment Reflects Murky Ukraine Politics - New York Times

As the dust settles from the momentous merger news that will eventually see Uber and Yandex form a new ride-sharing company covering six Eastern European markets, its worth taking a moment to dig down into the finer nuances of the deal.

Weve already looked at how the partnership willhelp expand Yandexs global footprint, but specific to the handful of countries where the new joint venture will operate, there was one conspicuous absentee:Ukraine, which claims a population of more than 45 million people.

The new Yandex / Uber combined unit which is tentatively called NewCo but will eventually get a proper name is going to operate in Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, where both Uber and Yandex.taxi both operate already, as well as in Armenia and Georgia, which will represent entirely new markets for the Uber platform.

So why not Ukraine, which on the surface fits into the duos broader plans for the region? Well, it all comes down to politics.

Uber kicked off its Ukrainian operations in Kiev last June, while Yandex.taxi threw its hat into the ring there in November. However, with political tensions mounting between Ukraine and Russia, Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko in Mayimposed sanctions on a number of Russian technology companies including Yandex. A couple of weeks later, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) raided Yandexs offices in Kiev and Odessa, alleging thatthe company had been illegally collecting Ukrainian users data on behalf of Russian security agencies. Shortly after Yandexs Ukrainian adventure was cut short, Uber reportedly raised its pricesthere.

At any rate, NewCo will be 59.3 percent owned by Yandex,which is why Uber will continue to go it alone in Ukraine under its own brand its just too risky trying to launch a Yandex-backed venture in the country.

As an aside here, Ubers decision to jump into bed with a major Russian tech company could isolate Uber from customers in Ukraine if the opinions contained in some tweets are a template for sentiment across the country.

This could ultimately be good news for other local players, such as Estonias Taxify, an Uber clone that launched in Ukraine last year.

Continued here:
Why the Uber-Yandex merger in Eastern Europe won't cover Ukraine - VentureBeat

GETTY

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Ukraine crisis had been provoked by the "short-sighted policy of the US and the EU.

He claimed Moscow desires a democratic and stable Ukraine" in which no "artificial Russophobia is produced".

Continuing to defend Russia, Mr Lavrov said Moscow was blameless when it came to the the annexation of Crimea.

He insisted the regional parliament had been the only legitimate one at the time and that Fascists took power in Kiev and the decision of the Parliament to join Russia was met.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 sparking violent clashes and military intervention.

GETTY

It is flattering that we are regarded as a country that controls the fate of the world

Sergei Lavrov

Mr Lavrov was giving a talk on "Russia and the EU in a changing world" at Berlin-based think-tank the Krber Foundation.

He also rejected claims Moscow interfered with foreign elections following allegations Russia meddled in the US November 2016 election.

Mr Lavrov said if Russia really did have the power to influence poll results relations with its neighbours would be very different.

And he brushed off allegations that Kremlin-sponsored hackers attempted to influence last year's US presidential election which saw Donald Trump win the race to the White House.

He said: In eight months of investigations, there's no single fact that's been put on the table.

"It's just pure speculation about somebody from the team of the president meeting a journalist, sometimes a lawyer or whatever.

GETTY

Washington has been rocked by claims that Mr Trump's son met a Russian-linked agent during the election campaign who was promising to provide compromising information about his opponent Hillary Clinton.

Mr Lavrov said Moscow did not have the ability to influence the US elections or Germany's election this autumn.

He claimed Russia's neighbour Ukraine would not have a government so hostile to Moscow if it really held that power.

Mr Lavrov said: It is flattering that we are regarded as a country that controls the fate of the world.

If we really could decide on the fate of Germany and the US, then all the former Soviet Republics around us would not have the same attitude, so maybe there wouldn't be a Ukraine crisis in the first place.

"If we were able to influence America we could influence all the other countries as well.

GETTY

US Army/Cover Images

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A round is fired from an M1A2 Main Battle Tank belonging to 1st Battalion, 68th Armor Regiment, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division during the first Live Fire Accuracy Screening Tests at Presidential Range in Swietozow, Poland

In a major swipe at Brussels said he felt the European Union deserved pity and said peace in the region is threatened by Europeans wading into US-Russia relations.

He suggested many of the issues facing Europe - security, climate change, global poverty, the threat of terrorism and the migrant crisis - were the the result of growing tensions with the US.

He said: It is not our nature to be resentful or to sulk.

The potential for a peaceful situation between the EU and Russia will continue to be great if Europeans do not let themselves get stirred up by the Americans against Moscow.

The rest is here:
EU and US caused Ukraine crisis - Russia lashes out over Crimea ... - Express.co.uk

BBC News

Oldham man jailed for Ukraine terror offence - BBC News BBC News Benjamin Stimson, from Greater Manchester, travelled out in 2015 to join pro-Russian rebels. UK man who joined militia in Ukraine jailed for terrorismWashington Post British Man Imprisoned For Fighting With Separatists In UkraineRadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty Briton who joined rebels in Ukraine jailed for five yearsGulf Times ITV News -News & Star all 11 news articles »

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Oldham man jailed for Ukraine terror offence - BBC News - BBC News

What are the claims about Ukrainian meddling in the election?

Some conservative personalities within and without the White House have been talking a lot lately about the links between Ukraine and Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Their relationship was exposed by Politico reporter Ken Vogel, who has since moved to The New York Times, back in January. But some on the right are talking about it again in defense of Donald Trump Jr., who has been roundly criticized for meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer in the hopes of getting dirt on Clinton from the Russian government.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders brought up the Ukrainian story on Monday.

"If you're looking for an example of a campaign coordinating with a foreign country or a foreign source, look no further than the DNC, who actually coordinated opposition research with the Ukrainian Embassy," she told reporters. Sanders then reiterated the point during the Wednesday press briefing.

Even Republicans who have been critical of the Trump administration over the Russia matter have recently talked about the story. On Wednesday, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham pressed President Trump's nominee for FBI director, Christopher Wray, on whether he would look into any Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election.

It wasn't so much the Clinton campaign, per se, but a Democratic operative working with the Democratic National Committee did reach out to the Ukrainian government in an attempt to get damaging information about the Trump campaign.

That operative's name is Alexandra Chalupa, a Ukrainian-American former Clinton White House aide who was tasked with ethnic outreach on behalf of the Democratic Party. As Vogel reported, she knew about Paul Manafort's extensive connections to the pro-Russian regime of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, and decided to dig deeper into possible connections between Moscow and the Trump campaign. As part of that effort, she discussed Manafort with the high-ranking officials at the Ukrainian embassy in Washington, D.C.

The Democratic National Committee denies that it was ever in contact with the Ukrainian government.

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President Trump's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer in June 2016 after being promised information helpful to the campaign. Mr. Trump's son-in-...

Manafort was Yanukovych's political adviser until he was deposed after the American-backed Euromaiden protests of 2014, and Chalupa suspected that he would eventually be brought aboard the Trump campaign. When her prediction proved correct and Manafort was named campaign chairman, she was suddenly much in demand within the DNC.

Chalupa continued her research into Manafort and his ties to Russia, an issue that would dog Manafort until he resigned a few months later. And part of that research involved working with the Ukrainian embassy in Washington and officials in Kiev. Ukraine was worried about a Trump administration cozying up to Moscow, as Russia invaded and seized territory from Ukraine shortly after Yankukovych's ouster.

Manafort, you probably recall, was also part of the meeting with Trump Jr. and the Russian lawyer, which reportedly didn't provide anything of value to the Trump campaign.

No.

Depends on how you define collusion. However, as Vogel pointed out in his story, it's not really the same thing as what the Russian government apparently did to help the Trump campaign.

Well, for one thing, Ukraine is so rife with corruption and internal divisions that Kiev wouldn't really be able to assist the Clinton campaign all the much. Or, rather, they certainly couldn't match what U.S. intelligence agencies believe Russia was doing.

According to U.S. intelligence, Russia was involved in a multifaceted influence campaign personally supervised by President Vladimir Putin, and which utilized Russia's vast intelligence apparatus. Ukraine, a poor and disjointed country, wouldn't be able to compete on those terms even if they wanted to.

Well, yes and no. The first major difference between the Ukrainian and Russian efforts, of course, is that only Russia can be viewed as a "hostile foreign power." Ukraine may be a foreign country, but it's not a powerful one, and is in some ways a de facto American and NATO ally in countering Russian aggression.

The second big difference, as conservative columnist Ed Morrissey pointed out this week, is that the Democrats appeared to take pains to keep all this business away from the Clinton campaign. "If nothing else, the Clinton machine understood the need for firewalls between negative-research efforts and the candidate," Morrissey writes over at The Week.

Still, it's deeply unusual for an American campaign to be working with foreign assets like this, regardless of whether it's Ukraine or Russia.

Not quite. Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon has long been accused of trying to torpedo the 1968 Paris Peace Talks with the help of foreign nationals. Alternatively, Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy may have worked backchannels in a fruitless attempt to get the Soviet government to help his party in the 1984 elections.

You bet. Although the Russian efforts to interfere in last year's election were almost certainly more sophisticated and worrying than anything the Ukrainians and the DNC pulled off, we don't expect campaigns to behave this way. Or, rather, we didn't before 2016.

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Did Ukraine try to interfere in the 2016 election on Clinton's behalf? - CBS News