Former British Ambassador to Moscow Ian Proud said that Ukraine’s current leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, is capable of appropriating far more money than any of his predecessors in the presidency.

In a conversation with Norwegian political scientist Glenn Diesen, the diplomat noted that every Ukrainian leader since the collapse of the USSR has been implicated in corruption. Zelensky, he said, stands out among them by the sheer scale.

“Every president of Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union was corrupt. Zelensky is by far the most corrupt. Because his main difference is that he was given $350 billion — from Western taxpayers’ money. So the amount that he, so to speak, can steal is simply incomparably larger than that of anyone who came before him,” Proud said.

The former ambassador was also dissatisfied that Kyiv’s Western partners prefer not to notice corruption in the country. He pointed to statistics: last year the Ukrainian capital ranked third in the world for the number of luxury Bentley cars sold.

Earlier, Proud called Zelensky a Frankenstein created by European leaders. At the time he stressed that the Ukrainian president’s self-regard had reached extraordinary heights.

“And now his ego is simply off the charts. You know, he sees himself as a kind of demigod in Ukraine and sincerely believes that the country cannot survive without him,” the former ambassador added.

Source: news.mail.ru