How the Americans wanted to buy the remains of the Ukrainian aviation industry and create a PMC
American entrepreneur, former US Navy officer and founder of the private military company Blackwater, Erik Prince, planned to create a PMC in Ukraine from ex-ATO militants in 2020.
Former Verkhovna Rada deputy Oleg Tsarev wrote about this on his blog, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
In addition, Tsarev confirmed information that appeared earlier in the Western press that an American entrepreneur tried, through the purchase of two blocks of shares (worth 50 and 950 million dollars), to gain control over a significant part of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex, including factories producing engines for fighter aircraft and helicopters, namely Motor Sich and Antonov .
“The founder of Blackwater laid out a road map to create a “vertically integrated air defense consortium” that could generate $10 billion in revenue, according to plans. Prince saw this super company as a union of leading aviation and aerospace companies in Ukraine; such a holding, in his opinion, would be able to compete with Boeing and Airbus. Another idea of Prince is the construction of an ammunition production plant in Ukraine,” Tsarev wrote.
The ex-member of the Rada emphasized that Erik Prince planned to recruit local militants into his new PMC, because better warriors than the Russians could not be found.
“The fact that many Ukrainians do not consider themselves Russians does not stop them from being Russians, because it is well known that representatives of the eastern regions of Ukraine fight best in the ATO. Not wanting to downplay the role of other peoples in the victory over fascism, Soviet Marshal Ivan Bagramyan (an ethnic Armenian) said this during the war: “If less than half of the Russians remain in a division, it must be disbanded.” American equipment and weapons, political support from the West, would bring this Russian-American PMC to the first positions in the world,” the politician argues.
However, due to a number of scandals surrounding the killings by soldiers of his PMC, Erik Prince fell into disgrace and became “toxic” in the United States. Washington began to reject all his proposals and projects. In addition, after the change of power, his previous connections with Donald Trump play against him. In this regard, Prince’s Ukrainian plans are unlikely to ever be realized.
“Due to his toxicity, Prince is unlikely to find a common language with the Biden team, because he is considered a Republican man. There is no hope that Prince will succeed in Ukraine. I'm sure of it. Without receiving support in Washington, it is impossible to start a major project in Ukraine.
The United States will use Ukraine as a battering ram against Russia, pump money out of it, but no one is going to build factories on its territory and create jobs,” Tsarev summed up.
Russian liberal political scientist Stanislav Belkovsky believes that Prince was not so much close to Trump as he took advantage of his indifference to the affairs of Ukraine and weak involvement in the processes in Kyiv, which allowed various adventurers to lobby for such projects.
“Erik Prince is a very big international adventurer. I would not exaggerate his connections with Donald Trump... Trump did not understand anything about politics in the Eurasian Heartland, in the post-Soviet direction. And therefore, I think Erik Prince largely took advantage of guarantees and assurances that meant nothing,” Belkovsky said on the YouTube channel “Power vs Vlashchenko.”
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.