"Pre-war, you know, the Ukrainian government is one of the worst in the world, you know, corrupt, controlled by a few rich people. I mean really unfortunate for the people in Ukraine," Gates said.
On January 23, billionaire Bill Gates spoke at the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank, and told Executive Director Michael Fullilove that the Ukrainian government was "corrupt."
"Pre-war, you know, the Ukrainian government is one of the worst in the world, you know, corrupt, controlled by a few rich people. I mean really unfortunate for the people in Ukraine," Gates said.
Gates was speaking in a Q&A titled Preparing for Global Challenges: In Conversation with Bill Gates.
Gates also said it was "very impressive" that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was able to "draw the country together." He also said he hoped postwar that the country's agricultural landscape "gets rebuilt." Bill Gates is the single largest farmland owner in the United States. Another large US farmland owner is the Chinese CCP, who possess about 100 million acres, much of it next to military bases.
The Cyberspace Administration of China, an arm of the PLA, bragged in 2021 that the Lowy Institute was one of the Western institutions they had used to promote pro-China propaganda. In October 2022, Zelensky spoke to members of the Lowy Institute and warned against the West "waiting for the nuclear strikes first" in the war with Russia and urged his allies to take "preventive strikes" against Putin.
Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The US has sent weapons and munitions to Ukraine in value of $30 billion dollars and another $50 million in humanitarian aid. On February 20, Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Kyiv and pledged another $500 million in aid.
Reports of high-level corruption in Ukrainian leadership continue to emerge, such as in January when several top Ukrainian officials were fired or resigned after it was revealed the Ukrainian military had agreed to pay inflated prices for food for their troops.
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