Exclusive: Ukraine’s Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko collected at least $1.77 million in bonuses from a U.S.-taxpayer-funded investment project that she ran even as it was losing money, a sign that her image as a paragon of public-interest “reform” may not be all that it’s cracked up to be, reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
Before becoming Ukraine’s Finance Minister last December, Natalie Jaresko collected $1.77 million in bonuses from a U.S.-taxpayer-financed investment fund where her annual compensation was supposed to be limited to $150,000, according to financial documents filed with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service this year.
The near 12-fold discrepancy between the compensation ceiling and Jaresko’s bonuses, paid in 2013, was justified in the IRS filing from the Jaresko-led Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF) by drawing a distinction between getting paid directly from the $150 million U.S. government grant that created the fund and the money from the fund’s “investment sales proceeds,” which were treated as fair game for extracting bonuses far beyond the prescribed compensation level.
Ukraine’s Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko.
Using this supposed loophole, Jaresko and some of her associates enriched themselves by claiming money generated from U.S. taxpayers’ dollars while avoiding any personal financial risks. She and other WNISEF officers collected the bonuses from what they deemed “profitable” exits from some investments even if the overall fund was losing money and shrinking, as it apparently was in recent years.
According to WNISEF’s filing for the 2013 tax year, submitted to the IRS on Aug. 11, 2015, the value of the investment fund had shrunk from $150 million at its start to $93.9 million in the fund’s 2012 tax year and to $89.8 million in the 2013 tax year. (WNISEF’s tax years end on Sept. 30.)
So, Jaresko’s arrangement was something like taking someone else’s money to a roulette table, placing it on black, and claiming a share of the winnings if the ball stopped on black. However, if the ball landed on red, then the someone else absorbed the loss, except in this case the winners were Jaresko and her associates and the losers were the American taxpayers.
The purpose cited by the U.S. Congress in starting the non-profit WNISEF with $150 million in the 1990s was to help jumpstart an investment economy in Ukraine and Moldova for the benefit of the people of those countries. The project was administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which selected Jaresko, a former U.S. diplomat of Ukrainian heritage, to run the project.
Last December, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko named Jaresko Finance Minister after awarding her instant Ukrainian citizenship. At that point, she quit WNISEF and has since become the face of Ukrainian “reform,” representing the U.S.-backed government at international banking events at Davos, Switzerland, and elsewhere while appealing for billions of dollars in Western financial aid which she oversees.
Thus, Jaresko’s standards for handling public moneys are relevant to judging whether the new regime is just a reshuffling of who gets to plunder Ukraine or a serious effort at reform. The overthrow of the previous Ukrainian government of President Viktor Yanukovych was largely justified in February 2014 because of allegations about corruption. The new regime has presented itself as committed to reform, even though some outside observers contend that corruption is as bad or worse than under the old government.
Self-Interest v. Public Interest
There is also the question of whether Jaresko is more interested in getting rich than in serving the people of Ukraine. As WNISEF’s chief executive officer, Jaresko seemed to grow dissatisfied with her $150,000 salary. For instance, in 2004, she earned more than double the prescribed amount, paid $383,259 along with $67,415 in expenses, according to WNISEF’s IRS filing for that year.
According to audit documents that I obtained from USAID, an “Expense Analysis” for 2004 showed $1,282,782 being paid out as “Exit-based incentive expense-equity incentive plan” and another $478,195 being paid for “Exit-based incentive expense-financial participation rights.” That suggested that Jaresko was already claiming bonuses from WNISEF’s investments (bought with U.S. taxpayers’ money) and sold during 2004.
In 2006, Jaresko’s compensation for her work with WNISEF was removed from public disclosure altogether after she co-founded two related entities Horizon Capital Associates (HCA) to manage WNISEF’s investments (and collect around $1 million a year in fees) and Emerging Europe Growth Fund (EEGF), a private entity to collaborate with WNISEF on investment deals.
Jaresko formed HCA and EEGF with two other WNISEF officers, Mark Iwashko and Lenna Koszarny. They also started a third firm, Horizon Capital Advisors, which “serves as a sub-advisor to the Investment Manager, HCA,” according to WNISEF’s IRS filing for 2006.
According to the USAID’s expense analyses for 2004-06, the taxpayer-financed WNISEF spent $1,049,987 to establish EEGF as a privately owned investment fund for Jaresko and her colleagues. USAID apparently found nothing suspicious about these tangled business relationships despite the potential conflicts of interest involving Jaresko, the other WNISEF officers and their affiliated companies.
For instance, WNISEF’s 2012 annual report devoted two pages to “related party transactions,” including the management fees to Jaresko’s Horizon Capital ($1,037,603 in 2011 and $1,023,689 in 2012) and WNISEF’s co-investments in projects with the EEGF. Though the IRS forms have a line for earnings from “related organizations,” WNISEF listed nothing, apparently treating compensation from Horizon Capital and EEGF as “unrelated” for the purposes of reporting compensation for Jaresko and other officers.
So, the scale of how much Jaresko was making from her association with WNISEF was unclear until last week when the IRS released WNISEF’s 2013 tax filing of Aug. 11, 2015, in response to a request from Consortiumnews.com. Though the filing still did not disclose all of Jaresko’s WNISEF-related compensation, it did list her $1.77 million share of the $4.5 million in bonuses awarded to her and two other WNISEF officers, Iwashko and Koszarny.
WNISEF filings also said the bonuses were paid regardless of whether the overall fund was making money, noting that this “compensation was not contingent on revenues or net earnings, but rather on a profitable exit of a portfolio company that exceeds the baseline value set by the board of directors and approved by USAID” with Jaresko also serving as a director on the board responsible for setting those baseline values.
Though compensation for Jaresko and other officers was shifted outside public view after 2006 as their pay was moved to the affiliated entities the 2006 IRS filing said: “It should be noted that as long as HCA earns a management fee from WNISEF, HCA and HCAD [the two Horizon Capital entities] must ensure that a salary cap of $150,000 is adhered to for the proportion of salary attributable to WNISEF funds managed relative to aggregate funds under management.”
Audit Gaps
KPMG auditors, who reviewed WNISEF finances, also took a narrow view of how to define income for Jaresko and other officers, only confirming that no “salary” exceeded $150,000, apparently not looking at bonuses and other forms of compensation. Neither USAID officials nor Jaresko responded to specific questions about WNISEF’s possible conflicts of interest, how much money Jaresko made from her involvement with WNISEF and its connected companies, and whether she had fully complied with IRS reporting requirements.
After Jaresko’s appointment as Finance Minister, and her resignation from WNISEF, I reviewed WNISEF’s available public records and detected a pattern of insider dealings and enrichment benefiting Jaresko and her colleagues. That prompted me in February to file a Freedom of Information Act request for USAID’s audits of the investment fund.
Though the relevant records were identified by June, USAID dragged its feet on releasing the 34 pages to me until Aug. 28 when the agency claimed nothing was being withheld, saying “all 34 pages are releasable in their entirety.” However, when I examined the documents, it became clear that a number of pages were missing from the financial records, including a total of three years of “expense analysis” in three-, six- and nine-month gaps since 2007.
Part of KPMG’s “Independent Auditors’ Report” for 2013 and 2014 was also missing. The report stated that “except as discussed in the third paragraph below, we conducted our audits in accordance with auditing standards generally accepted in the United States of America,” accountant-speak that suggests that “the third paragraph below” would reveal some factor that did not comply with generally accepted accounting principles (or GAAP).
But three paragraphs below was only white space and there was no next page in what USAID released. After I pointed out the discrepancies to USAID on Aug. 31, I was told on Sept. 15 that “we are in the process of locating documents to address your concern. We expect a response from the bureau and/or mission by Monday, September 28, 2015.”
After the Sept. 28 deadline passed, I contacted USAID again and was told on Oct. 2 that officials were “still working with the respective mission to obtain the missing documents.” On Oct. 22, USAID sent me one additional page from KPMG’s audit report stating that its review of WNISEF’s books lacked “an external quality control review by an unaffiliated audit organization” as required by the U.S. government’s auditing standards because no such program is offered in Ukraine. Other pages are still missing.
An earlier effort by Jaresko’s ex-husband Ihor Figlus to blow the whistle on what he considered improper business practices related to WNISEF was met by disinterest inside USAID, according to Figlus, and then led to Jaresko suing him in a Delaware court in 2012, using a confidentiality clause to silence Figlus and getting a court order to redact references to the abuses he was trying to expose.
Figlus’s complaints related to what he saw as improper loans that Jaresko had taken from Horizon Capital Associates to buy and expand her stake in EEGF, the privately held follow-on fund to WNISEF. After Figlus discussed this issue with a Ukrainian journalist, Jaresko sent her lawyers to court to silence him and, according to his lawyer, bankrupt him.
The filings in Delaware’s Chancery Court are remarkable not only because Jaresko succeeded in getting the Court to gag her ex-husband through enforcement of a non-disclosure agreement but the Court agreed to redact nearly all the business details, even the confidentiality language at the center of the case. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine’s Finance Minister’s ‘American Values.”]
Shared Values
Earlier this year, I sent detailed questions to USAID and to Jaresko via several of her associates. Those questions included how much of the $150 million in U.S. taxpayers’ money remained in WNISEF, why Jaresko reported no compensation from “related organizations,” whether she received bonus money, how much money she made in total from her association with WNISEF, what AID officials did in response to Figlus’s whistle-blower complaint, and whether Jaresko’s legal campaign to silence her ex-husband was appropriate given her current position and Ukraine’s history of secretive financial dealings.
USAID press officer Annette Y. Aulton got back to me with a response that was unresponsive to my specific questions. Rather than answering about the performance of WNISEF and Jaresko’s compensation, Aulton commented on the relative success of 10 “Enterprise Funds” that USAID has sponsored in Eastern Europe, adding:
“There is a twenty year history of oversight of WNISEF operations. Enterprise funds must undergo an annual independent financial audit, submit annual reports to USAID and the IRS, and USAID staff conduct field visits and semi-annual reviews. At the time Horizon Capital assumed management of WNISEF, USAID received disclosures from Natalie Jaresko regarding the change in management structure and at the time USAID found no impropriety during its review.”
One Jaresko associate, Tanya Bega, Horizon Capital’s investor relations manager, said she forwarded my questions to Jaresko, but Jaresko did not respond.
Despite concerns that Jaresko may have enriched herself at the expense of U.S. taxpayers and then used a Delaware court to prevent disclosure of possible abuses, Jaresko has been hailed by the U.S. mainstream media as a paragon of reform in the U.S.-backed Ukrainian regime.
Last January, New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman cited Jaresko as an exemplar of the new Ukrainian leaders who “share our values” and deserve unqualified American support. Friedman uncritically quoted Jaresko’s speech to international financial leaders at Davos, in which she castigated Russian President Vladimir Putin:
“Putin fears a Ukraine that demands to live and wants to live and insists on living on European values, with a robust civil society and freedom of speech and religion [and] with a system of values the Ukrainian people have chosen and laid down their lives for.”
Exactly which Western “values” Jaresko actually shares remains unclear because of the fog surrounding her actions at WNISEF and her unwillingness to reveal how much she made from her association with a U.S.taxpayer funded project. However, if those Western “values” include putting citizens’ interests before self-interest and believing that transparency is critical for a democracy, Jaresko may need some remedial training.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.
Good for Ms. Jaresko! She earned her money ‘fair and square’ – just like most of us. Of course there are exceptions and they’re all from russia. Putin, lavrov and kirill alone have stolen over $US 60 BILLION from their own people while their ignorant internet trolls are paid $600/month to post deceptive commentaries on sites such as this. The mockali will never learn, which is why their passenger planes continue to fall from the skies…
Suggest you take a lesson in venture capital structures and compensation before you next want to write a price like this. It might help you understand what you are writing about so you can do so professionally instead of jumping to conclusions by simply misunderstanding what’s being done because you don’t know the standard terminology.
Except for is a standard wording for audit reports and can mean anything, not necessarily compliance with GAAP. The author is like a little kid trying to blow things out of proportion. Nobody is perfect. Not even you
Dear Robert Parry,
Your link to KPMG’s “Independent Auditors’ Report†only shows the cover letter to the WNISEF BoD. Was there a “clean” Audit Opinion attached?
Job Creator: “Well, you can’t look at Wall Street for the last 10 years. You have to look at where Wall Street’s been for the last 200 years. There are 300 million people in this country and as of four years ago, that unemployment rate was 4.5 percent. . .â€
Question: “But, how can you judge . . .?â€
Job Creator: “Hold on, hold on, hold on, it’s not your show, monkey! I’m talking to these people—hold on–I’m not talking to you! Monkey, I’m not talking to you.â€
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGfUn7EZ69w
Grow up, monkey.
Grow up. Perhaps it doesn’t seem exactly right, but it’s chump change compared to what has and continues to happen with many investment firms. This while execs take bonuses directly from the giant bailout programs, white collar criminals are paid to retire essentially, a traffic ticket or minor drug violation can lead to a life perpetually in the justice system, Wall Street gambles with investors (also taxpayers) money freely with no consequences for horrible decision making. All those are as bad and often far worse morally. Accusing an executive of legally being paid while the company struggles doesn’t seem so scandalous in that amount. Sure it doesn’t seem right, but in a position to accept stability and security for your family would you say no? Would you say the same about coaches athletes and other professionals who receive millions for not just struggling businesses but complete failures. Think it’s different? How much taxpayer money is used for the funding of stadiums or paid to sports organizations for services “honoring” the troops? Is it right people acquire more than they can ever spend while one in five children in this country face food shortage on a daily basis? Ukraine is in bad shape, but this woman’s income from a US investment in 2010 isn’t the cause. People there in many areas are suffering in ways people shouldn’t even have to worry about in modern times. While people die of sickness and hunger our political knuckleheads debate sending weapons and if it will enhance their projection of power. How about providing basic human needs and compassion first then play who has the bigger rocket when the majority of the population of our own country and others in need don’t have more pressing problems? Just another fine example of the pitiful excuse of what is supposed to be a democratic republic being turned into the biggest legalized tool of the ultra wealthy to continue the disease of immorality and greed killing more than any other thing in the history of the planet
“WNISEF filings also said the bonuses were paid regardless of whether the overall fund was making money, noting that this ‘compensation was not contingent on revenues or net earnings, but rather on a profitable exit . . . .'”
Mutual funds, many of which are part of workers’ 401(k) defined-contribution retirement plans, operate the same way: the management are paid (more correctly, they extract) management and other fees regardless of the fund’s performance. This is one of the main reasons that, over a long term of decades, the fund management are likely to extract more money for themselves than the worker will get after retirement. Periodic worker/employer contributions tend to mask fund under-performance. This is the same retirement scheme, allegedly for the workers’ benefit, that was set up by the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile under the direction of “the Chicago boys” and American economist Milton Friedman. I’m uncertain if the fund directed by Jaresco is a sovereign wealth fund or some sort of retirement scheme for the workers in Ukraine; regardless, the entire system is extractive, serving management rather than the alleged beneficiaries.
“The entire system is extractive, serving management rather than the alleged beneficiaries.”
Word.
Choose your system — social, political, religious, economic — the song remains the same.
The exceptions are extraordinarily rare.
This is a beautifully wrought indictment against Jaresko, and I hope it turns into a jail cell.
On June 9, 2015, the Atlantic Council hosted a private roundtable discussion with Natalie Jaresko and Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
In her presentation, Jaresko took pains to emphasize that “this IMF program is absolutely critical”.
Jaresko went on to discuss Ukraine’s “extraordinarily high” public debt which she blamed on “the previous regime”.
Then she made an interesting point:
“If you ask the Ukrainian citizen what they see in terms of infrastructure, in roads and bridges airports, the only thing they’ll be able to point to is the Donetsk Airport that’s been completely obliterated by the Russian terrorists.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjKpOP3CwTs
(see minutes 11:00-11:30)
The condition of Donetsk Airport illustrates precisely why the regime in Kiev launched its Anti-Terror Operation (ATO) blitzkrieg against the people of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Here’s what the Ukrainian Air Force did to Donetsk Airport
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZoIMuIo6qI
Donetsk International Airport in Ukraine was completely rebuilt just in time for EURO 2012, the 14th European Championship for men’s national football teams organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA).
The final tournament of the 2012 UEFA European Championship, held between 8 June and 1 July 2012, was co-hosted for the first time by Poland and Ukraine.
The Donetsk airport infrastructure was renewed to help manage the increasing number of passengers arriving in the eastern Ukrainian city for EURO 2012.
Ukrainian state budget contributed USD 758 million into the Donetsk airport reconstruction. Additionally, private investments and local budget funded the construction. In November of 2011 the airport was named after renowned classical composer Serhiy Prokofiev, who originated from Donetsk.
Located 10 km northwest of Donetsk, the airport was built in the 1940s and 1950s and rebuilt in 1973 and again from 2011 to 2012. On May 14, 2012, the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, opened the new seven-storey terminal capable of servicing up to 3,100 passengers per hour (previously – 700).
Dude, seriously? You think you deserve any credibility for this?
It’s called “creative destruction”, dude.
Creative destruction (German: schöpferische Zerstörung) was first used by the German Marxist sociologist Werner Sombart in his work Krieg und Kapitalismus (“War and Capitalism”, 1913).
In the earlier work of Marx, however, the idea of creative destruction or annihilation (German: Vernichtung) implies not only that capitalism destroys and reconfigures previous economic orders, but also that it must ceaselessly devalue existing wealth (whether through war, dereliction, or regular and periodic economic crises) in order to clear the ground for the creation of new wealth.
The Austrian American economist Joseph Schumpeter, developed the concept in his book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, first published in 1942. Out of a careful reading of Marx’s thought, Schumpeter argued that the creative-destructive forces unleashed by capitalism would eventually lead to its demise as a system:
Schumpeter analyzed “the process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one … [The process] must be seen in its role in the perennial gale of creative destruction”
Neoconservative author Michael Ledeen argued in his 2002 book The War Against the Terror Masters that the undoing of traditional societies is America’s modus operandi: “Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad.”
The brutal reality America’s distinctive brand of militarized capitalism, aka “democracy”, is evident all over the planet, from eastern Europe (Ukraine) to northern Africa (Libya) to the Middle East (Iraq / Syria).
The message is quite clear and always the same: embrace the IMF (the “democracy” of debt obligation in perpetuity) or be destroy… quicker. The destruction is ensured in any case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtvznXTAabk
The Ukrainian Armed Forces held Donetsk Airport long enough to make sure there was no Donetsk Airport. No doubt there’s an IMF loan in the works for the rebuild.
While we’re on the subject of “small beer”, Ms. Jaresko’s $1.7M pales in comparison to Denny Hastert’s $17M; he got ten times as much. While there is little doubt Ms. Jaresko engaged in ethically unscrupulous bookkeeping, there is so far no one in the Justice Department willing to go out on a limb and call for an investigation. Denny, on the other hand, has been accused of espionage, money laundering, drug running, child prostitution and accepting bribes in exchange for influence favorable to foreign governments. In his case, not only is there no investigation, but the Feds are trying to make a can of worms they accidentally opened go away. Natalie looks like a Cub Scout den mother by comparison, so don’t expect any meaningful Federal investigation here, either.
Sadly, don’t expect any meaningful investigation here, either.
MSM and so-called “independent” media response to the real Hastert case:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9c_KttvQPU
I watched for a long time thinking those were “congress critters”. By the time I realized they weren’t cockroaches, the video was almost over!
USAID had always been a cover for CIA, so the extra “compensation” on the side IS the bonus…
Superb reporting, the writing is thorough but completely clear. These are truly awful people, who are supported by an awful Ukraine government and evidently beloved by important American foreign policy folks.
If the US was a signatory of the ICJ they might be able to list Jeresko as a wanted felon, If she actually did anything wrong. It was probably within her working guidelines to take credit for investment successes and to let the losers go. That seems to be standard practice in most investment firms. However the shareholders generally have their say about performance and compensation, as do the board of directors. In Ukraine the shareholders weren’t represented other than in the effect of their money, while the board of directors were Jeresko and the locals she hired to help supervise herself. All were well-paid for what they did – ‘birthing’ a new EUkraine.
Friedman was right about Natalie Jaresko, she does share his ‘values’. Receiving speaking fees of 50k+ and earning over 1 million a year Friedman is a relentless defender of crony capitalism and US financial imperialism around the globe. To him Jaresko has done no wrong, and apparently USAID sanctions this behaviour as they are going out of their way to defend Jaresko and protect her from future disclosures.
Given her decade plus record of stealing before being tapped to become Ukraines finance minister, clearly people higher on the food chain than her have given all of this their tacit approval.
Speaking of tacit approval from higher up on the food chain, I’m sure it’s merely coincidence, but Figlus got “gagged” in the state that just happens to be Biden stomping grounds. Hunter’s secrets are safe, for the time being. On another note, I’m sure there is absolutely no connection, but has anyone ever looked closely at that D. B. Cooper composite picture? The resemblance to Joe is incredible!
This should be all over the TV, and on front pages across the world.
Instead we have a new Russia-bashing “athlete doping” scandal. Charlie, Gayle, and Nora (over at CBS) made it into a “shock and awe” story this morning! They had me listen to young woman who apparently will get a hand-me-down gold medal out of it, she hopes, of course. And, also, of course, FIFA will be reconsidering location of World Cup finals, after all.
Thank you, Mr. Parry, for your dogged persistence; it matters. And do take care. The fascist rodents have “friends” all over the world, and many of them dress in nice suits or rumpled khakis to look like friends.
Speaking of nice suits, that Friedman guy is one “real piece of work,” isn’t he?
Hey Jaresko! Pay off my student loan!
Pretty small beer to use to discredit Ms. Jaresko. 1.7$ M after 10 years is nothing scandalous.
Doorlopen, niet kijken, er is hier niets te zien.
Net als de MH17 – Verslag van de Onderzoeksraad.
Ian the paid troll sounds like he’s British, not Dutch. From the lapdog country. They share American values, like being bad at foreign languages.
Jaresko fits the rest of Kiev fascist clique they all excel in criminal behavior from Yatsenyuk to Saakasvili, Yarosh and Kolomoisky. All with the financial and moral support by Washington. Even IMF is overruling its own standards namely NOT to provide loans ($17,5 billion) to countries in WARS or cannot pay back the loans. The only hope for IMF is that the EU will help out. The Ukrainian people are already starving of hunger and now winter comes without gas to heat their homes. In the meantime already 8000 people, mostly innocent women and children have been murdered in East Ukraine where the gas reserves are located.
In addition US VP Bidens son, Hunter and John Kerry’s stepson Devon Archer are working for Burisma Holdings a criminal organization headed by Kolomoisky and protected by another criminal Yarosh who heads a private murder battalion ‘Right Sector’ responsible for the murders in Odessa and Donbass.
Pretty small beer to use to discredit Ms. Jaresko. 1.7$ M after 10 years is nothing scandalous.
So that I know, Crazy Person, just how much should Jaresko have stolen from the public?
Thanks, Ian.
So nice of you to check in from the The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency) office in Den Haag.
“Pretty small beer” indeed.
I mean, considering the ongoing “investment” to “secure” Nulandistan ($5 billion and counting), $1.7 million is chump change.
And we all know who who the chumps are.
I don’t know where do you get your information, but I live in Ukraine and we have gas and heat at home. The problem is that it’s expensive. And we are not starving. But yes, “Jaresko fits the rest of Kiev fascist clique they all excel in criminal behavior from Yatsenyuk to Saakasvili, Yarosh and Kolomoisky. All with the financial and moral support by Washington”. And also don’t overestimate Yarosh – much ado about nothing. He is not popular and has no influence on minds of the majority of Ukrainian people. He has only 1% of support.