ELI5: why is Ukraine so important to our elected officials?

Seems like it was a good revenue source for democrats to fatten their wallets with.

They had money to spend and a fluid political situation and needed US foreign aid dollars which was funneled back through sweetheart deals and contracts to politicians and those who control them.

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How did an Eastern European country become a central figure in our democracy?

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The explanation is one spicy Chalupa

And of course, the reason Chalupa started digging was because Trump hired a man who'd re-habilitated the political career of a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician named Victor Yanukovych who's hiding out on Moscow because he's wanted for his role in the Maidan killings and a massive theft of the Ukrainian people.

I say, "hired", but of course DJT never paid Manafort, (just as he's not paying Guiliani now). Manafort was trying to get back into the good graces of his patrons in Eastern Europe.

Did you see that Giuliani consulted with Paul on all this business?

The reason is the Ukraine is/was corrupt as hell. It's like setting up a corporation in Delaware, there's just not much oversight.

Doc, manafort’s presence in Ukraine was a lot more complicated than you make it out to be.

He was actually trying to get Ukraine into a more pro-EU stance

The issue was the shady method of payments.

Yanukovych's comeback after the color revolution was built on his supposedly buying into moving Ukraine into the Euro-sphere. Paul Manafort knew exactly how to burnish his rep with pro-western Ukrainians (as well as in Brussels and Washington), but Yanukovych backed out, had his own people shot in the streets and now he's cooling his heels in Moscow because he'll be arrested if he sets foot back in Ukraine. Meanwhile Paul is sitting in jail and Rudy has been picking Paul's brain about how to get into the biz of servicing garchs.

Agree. We'd all do better by exporting our politics there than importing their politics here.

Russia is trying to rebuild the USSR. Currently Ukraine is a centerpiece, because of proximity to allied forces, and abundant natural resources to mobilize for the war machine.

We live in perpetual conflict driven by greed. It is the way of man and power. which side are you on and where are the lines drawn? (this is my tag line for a new video game)

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And of course, the reason Chalupa started digging was because Trump hired a man who'd re-habilitated the political career of a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician named Victor Yanukovych who's hiding out on Moscow because he's wanted for his role in the Maidan killings and a massive theft of the Ukrainian people.

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No. First off, Chalupa wasn't digging. She was asking Ukrainian officials to interfere in the 2016 election. Ukrainian Courts agreed, and found that Chalupa and Dems had been successful in eliciting Ukraine interference.

With regard to Yanukovych and Manafort, here's some pertinent info:

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As Chalupa was pursuing these channels, the Clinton campaign stepped up its efforts to find foreign dirt on Trump by hiring the Washington, D.C., firm Fusion GPS that March to compile and distribute opposition research on Trump. One of the company’s co-founders, Glenn Simpson, was a former Wall Street Journal reporter who had written several articles about Manafort’s work for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

In a 2007 article, Simpson wrote that Yanukovych “favors closer ties with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s administration.”

That view would inform much of the operation to come. It would use Manafort’s close ties to Yanukovych as the kernel of truth from which grew the vast Russiagate conspiracy.
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After Yanukovych became president in 2010, Manafort recommended that he draw closer to the European Union with a trade deal. Putin saw that as a threat, and gave Yanukovych a choice between crippling economic measures and a $15 billion aid package.

Ultimately, Yanukovych rejected Manafort’s advice, bowing to Putin in late 2013, touching off protests in the Ukrainian capital that led to deadly violence.

That turmoil started a new chapter in U.S.-Ukraine relations as the Obama White House made then Vice President Joe Biden the point man on the issue.

Biden had known Yanukovych since 2009 and spoke with him frequently during the crisis.

The Obama administration, however, had little confidence in Yanukovych. State Department officials on the ground the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, including Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland scrambled to piece together a coalition government. Yanukovych fled his country for sanctuary in Russia in February 2014, just days after his final phone call with Biden, when government snipers killed at least 88 protesters in the capital.
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Here’s where the politics get even more interesting. Burisma’s owner was not a reformer, but an ally of the just-exiled Yanukovych, having served as his minister of natural resources. Despite the Biden family’s financial relationship with the Yanukovych circle, Clinton operatives painted Manafort’s association with Yanukovych as evidence of the Trump campaign’s pro-Putin sentiments.
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One source for the Times story was former Ukrainian parliamentarian Serhiy Leshchenko, also referred to in the whistleblower complaint. According to former Fusion GPS contractor Nellie Ohr, Leshchenko was a source for Fusion GPS as well.

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and then there's this . . .

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But Ukraine’s new starring role was still to come. The Intelligence Community’s Inspector General relayed the newly disclosed “whistleblower” complaint from the CIA analyst to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence during a transitional period. Both DNI Dan Coats and Deputy Director Sue Gordon had just resigned when the whistleblower’s complaint reached Acting DNI Joseph Maguire on Aug. 16, his first day on the job.

Previously, the ICIG’s whistleblower’s form required first-hand knowledge of the reported concern to file a complaint. The updated form, which was “revised after press inquiries” regarding the whistleblower’s complaint, eliminated the requirement of first-hand knowledge. The CIA officer’s complaint appears to provide only hearsay.

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LINK