Yesterday, we discussed the reports of multiple high-ranking officials in the Ukrainian government resigning or being dismissed over claims of widespread corruption and fraud. As I noted at the time, anyone who has taken the time to honestly look into the recent history of Ukraine (as opposed to the cheerleading you are fed by the corporate media and leaders in both of our political parties on a daily basis) was probably not surprised. But this story was too big to ignore, so the news generated quite a few headlines and coverage on political talk shows.

This led the State Department to trot out spokesperson Ned Price to stanch the bleeding. Price assured the country that there was nothing to worry about and that there was “no evidence” that western funds (most of which came from American taxpayers) were being “misused.” I’m sure you’re all feeling better already. (Euronews)

The United States vowed to tightly monitor how Ukraine spends billions of dollars of aid on Tuesday, following a damaging corruption scandal that led to a string of resignations in Kyiv.

While Washington said it had no evidence western funds were being misused, US State Department Spokesman Ned Price promised there would be “rigorous monitoring” to ensure American assistance was not diverted.

Several senior Ukrainian officials were dismissed on Tuesday, in the wake of a corruption scandal surrounding illicit payments to deputy ministers and over-inflated military contracts.

How the State Department knows that America’s money isn’t being “diverted” is a mystery. We opened up the spigots for Ukraine as soon as the invasion began and accelerated the pace multiple times. Repeated calls for a full audit of where the money and weapons went were rebuffed by both Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress. They accused anyone who asked questions of either engaging in conspiracy theories or being “Putin’s stooges” who weren’t “standing up for democracy.”

We saw vastly underreported stories of Ukrainian officials who appeared to suddenly become quite wealthy last year and headed out to luxury resorts. At various times, reports have surfaced suggesting that some of the weapons we’ve sent to Ukraine have wound up on the black market, though that’s very difficult to confirm and the claims have been roundly denied. But don’t let any of that bother you.

Let’s just assume for the moment that Ned Price is correct and that none of “our money” is disappearing into some sort of corrupt Ukrainian rathole. That’s a rather meaningless claim for a very obvious reason. The Ukrainians themselves are admitting that money has been improperly diverted and heads are rolling because of it. The reality is that money is fungible. If someone in Ukraine’s Defense Department was funneling “Ukrainian money” that was supposed to be spent on feeding the troops into their own pockets and the military made up for that with “American money,” the result is the same. Our money was going toward replacing the stolen funds, not simply supporting their troops.

Ukraine has had serious problems with corruption dating back well before Zelensky came to power. And it doesn’t look like things have changed all that much since he did. If you’re fine with our tax dollars being spent in this fashion with the government flatly refusing to conduct an audit of where all the cash and weapons wound up, so be it. But let’s not fool ourselves in the process.