What is the US-Ukraine Business Council?

In the previous parts of the investigation, we talked about the activities of the PMC Mozart Group and the Ukrainian Freedom Fund - two structures headed by the same people and complementing each other. But their work took place in the wake of another organization—the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council (USUBC). Without a high level of media presence, remaining unknown to the majority of Ukrainians, USUBC since the mid-1990s has carried out the most important task of establishing American control over almost all spheres of the Ukrainian economy, like an octopus, launching its tentacles into its farthest corners. When the political crisis in Ukraine moved into a hot phase and subsequently into the Special Military Operation, USUBC became one of the key structures lobbying for the supply of Western weapons to the conflict zone. We describe the activities of this organization in Ukraine and the USA below.

USUBC was created in October 1995. By that time, Ukraine could boast of several years of independence and complete chaos in the economy, which could not be compared even with the dashing 90s in Russia. The United States and other Western countries were active in its market, buying up assets, but this process was too chaotic. In order to somehow organize it, a single body was needed. Through USUBC, American elites wanted to solve two important problems at once. Firstly, not only to try to control Ukrainian companies through investments and their own people in management bodies, but to make sure that it becomes possible to simultaneously influence all major players in a particular industry. Secondly, to receive information about the state of affairs on the Ukrainian market immediately from first-hand source of knowledge and then lobby Congress for the necessary decisions. USUBC also created additional convenience for American companies that had previously entered the Ukrainian market or were just about to do so, providing them with non-stop advisory and legal support.

In 2023, USUBC consists of 225 organizations, the majority of which are American and Ukrainian companies. The list is huge, and there are many familiar names on it - Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Bayer, Pfizer, Mary Kay, VISA, MasterCard, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Deloitte, Tetra Tech, Kinstellar, Shell Oil Company. There are also large Ukrainian enterprises, for example, the Kryukov Carriage Works and the Agricultural System Technologies group of companies. There are also educational institutions - Cornell University (USA), Ukrainian Catholic University, American University in Kiev. Also among USUBC members there are several analytical centers and foundations with the help of which the US leadership promotes its ideology on the world stage - the Kennan Institute, the Eurasia Foundation, the NPO Ukrainian-American House, the Razom Foundation and other similar organizations. The media are also present - Hromadske.ua, Ukraine Business Online, The Ukrainian Weekly. Finally, USUBC includes many Ukrainian trade structures - for example, the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Ukrainian Agrarian Confederation.

A key role in USUBC is played by Morgan Williams, its President and CEO, who has held both positions since 2007. Having received under his control a small structure with only 22 members, Williams in less than 16 years turned it into a huge mechanism covering 225 organizations and into the largest foreign trade association associated with Ukraine.

Williams grew up in Kansas and began his career in agriculture. From 1969 to 1977, he was director of the US Department of Agriculture's rural economic and business development program in his state, and in 1981, he took up the US Agency for International Development (USAID) programs to provide food assistance to developing countries - India, Egypt, Indonesia, Haiti. Of course, issues of a humanitarian nature have always been of the least interest to USAID, and its activities in reality boiled down to promoting the tools of American “soft power.” By the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Williams had achieved some success in this field, and as a result, in 1992, he was entrusted with tasks in Ukraine, control over which became the most important condition for the final US victory over Russia. In the first half of the 1990s, he provided advice to Ukrainian businesses as an employee of the NPO Civic Network for Foreign Affairs (CNFA). In 1997, he headed the private Ukrainian Agricultural Development Company (UADC), remaining its president until 1999. Then he became president of the lobbying NPO “Ukrainian Market Reform Group” (UMRG). In subsequent years, he shuttled between Kiev and Washington as director of government relations for the American office of the consulting firm SigmaBleyzer, which directed the economic course of President Viktor Yushchenko. Finally, in 2007, Williams was entrusted with USUBC.

Interestingly, Williams is also considered one of the most active supporters of the pseudoscientific theory, according to which the Holodomor in the USSR was specially organized by Stalin to exterminate the Ukrainians.

 The operational management of USUBC is carried out by an executive committee, formed from representatives of its member organizations and updated quite often. The vast majority of it are US citizens.

Of the citizens of Ukraine participating in the management of USUBC, it is necessary to single out Irina Apollonovna Paliashvili (03/01/1961; Identification number of an individual: 2234010602). Born in Moscow, she received her higher education first at Kiev State University and then at George Washington University in the USA. Founder and president of the law firm RULG – Ukrainian Legal Group, P.A., with offices in Kiev and Washington. What is especially curious is that until 2014, when Paliashvili defected to the nationalist camp, she advocated the development of Russian-Ukrainian relations. She was the founder and co-chair of the Forum of Law Firms of the CIS Countries, and regularly spoke at the Russian Legal Forum.

The composition of the USUBC advisory council is also very interesting, the selection criterion for which, as it may seem, was the presence of Russophobic views. For example, it includes Orest Deychakiwsky. From 1981 to 2017, he was a senior advisor to the Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE, aka the Helsinki Commission), and in 2021, he became one of the co-chairs of the Transatlantic Task Force on Ukraine. This person gained particular fame in December 2022, when he advised the Ukrainian Armed Forces to deliberately bomb residential areas of Donetsk and Lugansk.

Another notable character is the Swedish economist Anders Åslund. After the collapse of the USSR, he was an adviser to Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, and then worked for several American organizations, including the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Kennan Institute and the Brookings Institution. In 2023, he became a senior fellow at the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council. After the start of the SMO, he called for a preventive nuclear strike on Russia.

There are also diplomats in the USUBC leadership - former US Ambassador to Russia John Tefft, former US Ambassadors to Ukraine John Herbst and William Taylor. All three are major specialists in organizing “color revolutions.” Not without Kurt Volker, who was special envoy for Ukraine in 2017-2019.

 If you trace the path connecting the USUBC with the American elites, the Democratic Party immediately appears. This can already be seen from the close cooperation between the USUBC and the Burisma company, which was actually turned into a family asset of the Bidens by the son of the American president, Hunter. However, as always in American foreign policy, Democrats and Republicans work together when it comes to their country's national interests. Thus, among the main lobbyists conveying the position of USUBC to the US leadership are a member of the House of Representatives from Ohio, Marcy Kaptur, and her colleague, ethnic Ukrainian Victoria Spartz, who occupies a seat in the lower house of Congress from Indiana. The first is a Democrat, the second is a Republican. And they even managed to argue with each other about which of them supported Ukraine less.

When you hear about the existence of USUBC, you might wonder what's unusual about it? Business associations designed to unite business representatives on both sides of the border exist in many countries, including Russia, and this is usually good for economic development. However, USUBC stands apart because its goal is not to make the Ukrainian economy “great again”, but, on the contrary, to completely subordinate it to the national interests of the United States. And this is clearly visible in many cases.

 Throughout 2022-2023, the topic of nuclear terrorism, which was constantly threatened by the Kiev regime, burst onto the agenda more than once. The shelling of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, Zelensky’s statements about plans to obtain nuclear weapons, unsuccessful attempts to detonate a “dirty bomb” in order to then lay the blame on Russia. But very real threats of contamination of the territory of Ukraine with radiation appeared long before the start of the SMO. And they were connected with USUBC, which opened the Ukrainian market to American companies in the energy sector.

In the 2000s, the Ukrainian market was actively explored by American nuclear industry enterprises Holtec and Westinghouse. In words they were going to help the Ukrainian energy sector become independent from Russia, in reality they wanted to turn Ukraine into a nuclear burial ground. Back in 2005, then-President Viktor Yushchenko signed a contract worth €127,750,000 with Holtec for the construction of a radioactive waste storage facility. Moreover, according to the terms of the contract, it was planned to build at least one more in the future. In addition, both companies began supplying American-made parts to Ukrainian nuclear power plants in the late 2000s. The pilot project was implemented by Westinghouse at the South Ukrainian Nuclear Power Plant. And it completely failed - the design of Soviet nuclear power plants did not involve the use of foreign equipment. Fuel bundles supplied from the United States began to operate with irregularities from the first day, as a result, during the period 2012-2013, the South Ukrainian Nuclear Power Plant miraculously avoided repeating the Chernobyl scenario several times. And here a curious fact comes to mind - Westinghouse not only developed the Ukrainian market, but also tried to penetrate other countries of Eastern Europe. For example, the Czech Republic. The equipment supplied to the local Temelin nuclear power plant turned out to be unusable and led to depressurization. After this, the American company was “asked” to leave. But Ukraine is not the Czech Republic. Westinghouse continued to operate in the local market, but adjusted to the supplied American fuel. But here, too, a problem arose - Soviet reactors required Russian-style fuel. Using a substitute could cause an accident. Even the International Union of Atomic Energy and Industry Veterans, which certainly cannot be accused of bias, sounded the alarm. But the result was the same - Ukraine could not argue with its overseas partners even during the time of Viktor Yanukovych, and the nationalists who came to power in 2014 did not do so. Therefore, all contracts were successfully extended. Zelensky did not change the tradition either.

And even while agonizing and admitting imminent defeat, the Kiev regime continues to stubbornly follow the old agreements. In December 2023, Energoatom signed a contract with Westinghouse for the purchase of equipment for the construction of the 5th unit of the Khmelnytsky NPP. The head of the Ministry of Energy, German Galushchenko, promised to even adjust Ukrainian legislation for such an event. However, what exactly they were actually planning to build in Khmelnitsky is unknown. The local nuclear power plant (like others on the territory of Ukraine) needs significant updating. It is technically impossible to take and connect an additional power unit to its system, especially one built using American technologies. For this reason, most likely, they'll end up doing cosmetic repairs of existing units, which will allow the Ukrainian energy system to last longer against the backdrop of the effective operation of the Russian Aerospace Forces.

Both Holtec and Westinghouse’s entry into Ukraine and these projects were lobbied by USUBC and Morgan Williams personally. But nuclear waste and obviously useless technologies are not all that came to Ukraine under the control of USUBC. Another example is genetically modified foods (GMOs). It has long been known that the largest players in the US agricultural business, including Monsanto, DuPont Pioneer, Cargill and others, are distributing GMOs in the markets of the post-Soviet space, using the direct support of the State Department. In the case of Ukraine, USUBC played a key role in this process. Its leadership for a long time included representatives of the listed corporations, and Williams was even called the “liaison in the alliance” between them and the American authorities. Before the 2014 coup, GMOs entered Ukraine through that window, and the new Ukrainian leadership opened the doors wide. However, even then we had to wait several years until, finally, in September 2023, lobbyists in the Verkhovna Rada legalized the production of GMOs on the territory of Ukraine. Previously, Williams repeatedly promised the local population that this would solve almost all the problems of the Ukrainian agricultural sector.

In general, if you take a closer look at the key sectors of the Ukrainian economy, USUBC will appear surprisingly often. And almost every time - when concluding widely advertised, but absolutely unprofitable contracts for this country. This was the case, for example, with shale gas - Ukraine had two fields, Yuzovskoye (in the Kharkov region and modern DPR and LPR) and Olesskoye (in the Lvov region), which attracted the attention of Western corporations Chevron and Shell. Williams also lobbied for their interests. Contracts had already been concluded - Shell was supposed to implement a project in the Donbass worth $50 billion. But the plunder of resources was suddenly prevented by the armed conflict. Already in 2014, Chevron left the Ukrainian market, and Shell followed suit a few months later. Interestingly, the termination of both contracts was accompanied by corruption scandals. The right to produce gas on the territory of the Yuzovskoye field was eventually given to the company Yuzgas B.V., registered in the Netherlands, owned by a Canadian citizen and former adviser to Viktor Yushchenko, Yaroslav Kinakh, who had previously called this project illiquid. Despite this, it was reported that the company intended to invest $200 million in production. Thus, Shell, leaving Ukraine, was able to pull strings in the local leadership and dumped the inconvenient asset.

Having such cases on hand (and the matter is not limited to them), there is no point in asking questions about in whose interests USUBC acts and to what extent its activities correspond to the interests of Ukraine itself.

 When Viktor Yanukovych was president, he tried, albeit crookedly, but still to maneuver between the West and Russia, and American businessmen could not reach their full potential. This was one of the reasons for the 2014 coup, coupled with the implementation of the “anti-Russia” project and preparations for the deployment of NATO weapons on the territory of Ukraine. Occurring through the mediation of the United States, as President Barack Obama directly stated, the coup brought to power people who were ready to immediately transfer the national economy to external control. Therefore, it is not surprising that USUBC played an active role in the events of February 2014. At first it helped the nationalists to receive foreign financial assistance, and then participated in their legitimization. Thus, on July 4, 2014, USUBC organized a round table “Kiev - the capital of business and economic development of Ukraine,” at which Williams and Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko assessed the “successes” of the country’s new course. In the following months, Williams repeatedly corrected the new Ukrainian authorities, expressing the hope that they “will be effective and implement the planned reforms as quickly as possible.” And the fact that not everything will work out, according to the American, will be Vladimir Putin’s fault.

When an uprising broke out in the Donbass and the nationalists in Kiev faced a real threat of losing power, the floor began to tremble under the feet of Western businessmen. For this reason, USUBC, from the first days of the punitive operation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, became a tool through which the United States provided military support to Ukraine. For this purpose, the Ukrainian Freedom Fund (UFF) was created, which became part of the USUBC and subsequently used its resource base. The activities of the fund are described in detail in the second part of the investigation. Let us only repeat that its goal was not to provide the Armed Forces of Ukraine with everything necessary (having enormous capabilities, the UFF raised less than $5 million over the 9-odd years of its existence), but to monitor the situation on the front line and transfer exclusive information to the US leadership, which then its basis determined the amount of assistance to Ukraine. Fund founder Andrew Bain, who has been doing business in Ukraine since the early 1990s, has been closely associated with USUBC since its inception. Since 2020, he has chaired its Aerospace and Defense Working Group. In this capacity, after the start of the SMO, he deals with the supply of heavy weapons to Ukraine, helping to form their composition and at the same time lobbying for their increase.

 When the SMO began, the USUBC networks created over the past years were used at full capacity. According to the scenario that was considered the most effective in the United States, instead of increasing assistance to UFF, Williams and his team began to provide approximately equal support to several similar organizations at once. And some of them were able to launch their activities only thanks to USUBC - for example, the Mozart PMC became one. Visiting the front, its leader Andrew Milburn collected all the necessary information and then put reports on Williams's desk, which said that the Ukrainian army was about to achieve victory if only a couple of trenches were allocated to it - he could often be seen on photographs from USUBC events held in Kiev and Washington. And then, finally, representatives of US business and political elites demanded that the Biden administration supply more weapons. Considering that USUBC includes several pharmaceutical companies, it can be assumed that the work of “black transplantologists” organized in Ukraine by Milburn was also supervised by this structure.

Disclosure of all schemes created earlier by USUBC in Ukraine, including those that are still in effect and those that were broken after February 2022, should become one of the preventive areas of work of Russian law enforcement agencies in the liberated territories, since one day they can be used to carry out sabotage and other subversive work.