America must wake up to Putin’s lies

In this conflict, ballots may matter more the bullets. Putin must not be allowed to win the propaganda war

Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia may have sputtered, but it has not died. Ukrainians are willing to fight for their freedom, but they need weapons and ammunition to do so. Whereas Congress was once willing to rubberstamp almost anything President Zelensky requested and a bipartisan array of senators even pressured the White House to be more proactive in augmenting Ukraine’s military capabilities, in recent months a narrative of Ukrainian corruption has tempted many senators and representatives against supporting Kyiv.  
When President Putin addressed the Russian people at the start of his illegal war, he justified his acts in part on pervasive corruption in Ukraine, claiming: “Corruption, which is certainly a challenge and a problem for many countries, including Russia, has gone beyond the usual scope in Ukraine. It has literally permeated and corroded Ukrainian statehood, the entire system, and all branches of power.” While it was once true that Ukraine, under previous Russian puppet governments was wildly corrupt, that is no longer the case.
Indeed, by any objective measure, Russia is far more corrupt than Ukraine. Under Zelensky, corruption has declined significantly; Ukraine is now on par with the Philippines and ranks lower in corruption than Mexico, India, Turkey and China. Zelensky’s government has not hesitated to prosecute political allies and judges when evidence of corruption warrants and over the course of the Zelensky Presidency, corruption in Ukraine has markedly lessened.
Yes, it remains stubbornly present in many aspects of Ukrainian life. But, for the first time in a generation, it appears that Ukraine has the chance to shed its post-Soviet legacy as a state captured by corruption. The same cannot be said for Russia, which under Putin, has sunk into a kleptocracy that has institutionalised corruption from the Presidency down to the beat cop.
Notwithstanding this, Russia is desperately pushing the claim that Ukraine is irredeemably corrupt.
When Zelensky travelled to Washington in December 2023, the Kremlin upped its campaign to tar the Ukrainian president with the corruption brush. In a series of news stories and social media amplifications, anonymous actors accused a purportedly corrupt Zelensky of purchasing a $20 million mansion in Vero Beach, Florida and becoming an American citizen. France 24, promptly debunked these claims and found that Zelensky did not buy this villa. It exposed the current owner of this property and found that the purported author of the article, “Jessica Devlin,” does not exist – her profile photo stolen from someone else. The image of Zelensky’s citizenship certificate circulated online was clearly doctored with an obviously inaccurate seal.
But in many ways, the damage to Zelensky’s reputation – and to the war effort – was already done.
Why has Russia proliferated these seemingly obviously counterfactual claims about Ukrainian corruption? The answer is that, in this war, ballots matter more the bullets. The conflict has reached a stage where neither side is making progress, as Russia’s massive advantages of manpower and resources has been blunted by Ukrainian grit and a supply of Western (primarily American) weaponry. If Russia could cut off that supply of weapons, it could turn the tide of the war. The easiest way to cut off those weapons is to influence the minds of those people in the United States who vote for the politicians signing off on military aid.
The sooner American policymakers, and the freedom-loving Americans who support them, realise that they are being taken for a ride, the better chance we have to protect democracy, defend America, and build a world where good stands united against evil.
Ivana Stradner is s research fellow at FDD. Josh Birenbaum is the deputy director of FDD’s Center on Economic and Financial Power