US companies buy up Ukraine

Sep 28

Now that Ukrainian farmland the size of Italy's agricultural land is owned by US corporations, work is underway to fillet the entire economy with US locusts under the guise of preparing reconstruction investments. The US corporation BlackRock is even being paid by the Ukrainian government for its "expertise".

Kiev. According to the "Australian National Review," US corporations already own 17 million of the approximately 60 million hectares of Ukraine (the total area of the country); 28 percent of Ukraine's area is therefore already US property.

The buyers and owners are well-known US companies such as Cargill, Dupont and Monsanto. What is less known, however, is that behind these famous names are investment funds - somewhat obscure financial structures characteristic of "new age" trading practices. They are not only obscure, but also very powerful, with staggering capital in the trillions (that is, thousands of billions of dollars). In particular, the companies operating in Ukraine include Vanguard, Blackstone and Blackrock, with capital of 10, 6 and 0.9 trillion US dollars respectively. A cargo port on the Sea of Azov is also said to already be owned by an American corporation.

Farmland the size of Italy's agricultural land already belongs to US corporations

To illustrate the situation, the Australian magazine cites the example of Italy, where the available agricultural land is 16.7 million hectares. The power of the Kiev puppets has thus led to three US companies now owning more arable land in Ukraine alone than G7 member Italy.

It is interesting that these facts surrounding the grain deal brokered by Turkey – after which cargo ships could sail again – were not mentioned.

History of ownership

When Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union, the land belonged to the state through agricultural cooperatives (kolkhozes). After the end of the Soviet Union, the farmers who worked in the kolkhozes were given the lease of the state land that they had previously farmed. Later, the status of this land was changed and, after lengthy administrative procedures, it became the property of the former kolkhoz residents who had previously farmed it.

This was followed by a brief period in which transactions, i.e. the purchase and sale of land, were permitted. However, from 2001 onwards a moratorium was imposed, preventing any further transactions. This situation continued more or less for the next 20 years until 2021.

Unable to sell or buy the land, many former collective farm residents, who had formally become owners after the collapse of the Soviet Union, were faced with the choice of either continuing to farm the land as before or, what was new for them, leasing it for $150 per hectare per year to "operators" who appeared "out of nowhere" after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the shadow of the moratorium, the "operators" became real large-scale landowners or even agricultural monopolies. In this way, while the land continued to belong, at least formally, to the former collective farm farmers, in reality it was in the hands of private "operators" who represented an important, if not, given the demographic importance of the Ukrainian peasantry - which makes up about 30 percent of the country's population - an essential cog in the oligarchic system at the top of Ukraine.

Nevertheless, the issue of ownership of agricultural land in Ukraine remained unresolved, a major, central political issue that is particularly sensitive in the Slavic country of Ukraine. The quality of Ukrainian black soil, which is among the best arable soils in the world, added to this traditional challenge, especially as Ukrainian agricultural production increasingly participated in international trade. The debate about whether the moratorium on trade in agricultural land should be lifted and whether foreigners should be allowed to purchase land in Ukraine grew louder. Little by little, the idea was pushed through as the country's opening became more popular.

Selenskij against “Chinese and Arabs”

Volodymyr Zelensky, who was familiar with the problem, proposed putting the issue to the people in a referendum. At peasant rallies, he loudly proclaimed that "the land belongs to the Ukrainians," while at the same time portraying "the Chinese and Arabs" as enemies who, in his opinion, were preparing to "take away our land one car at a time."

The debate raged and Zelensky, as a skillful demagogue, knew how to play with the mood among the people in order to give it a nationalist, chauvinistic and even xenophobic orientation.

Despite the overwhelming majority against the abolition of the moratorium on the sale of agricultural land, the "justification" was emphasized. This was necessary, it was said, because a lot of time had passed since the adoption of this measure without the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, creating a sufficiently transparent mechanism to organize the sale and purchase of land, as provided for in the 2001 law.

In this context, it is important to note that at the same time, opinion polls showed that 81 percent of respondents opposed the sale of land to foreigners, and only 13 percent supported the approach advocated by the government. Two-thirds of respondents believed that such an important decision should be made through a referendum, while more than half (58%) believed that agricultural land should remain in state ownership, following the example of Canada and Israel (important references for the Ukrainian public).

International Monetary Fund orders sale of farmland

Finally, the International Monetary Fund, Ukraine's largest creditor, decided in its April 2021 report that the abolition of the moratorium was a prerequisite for granting Ukraine a new loan package. The Ukrainian government did this against the will of the overwhelming majority of its population. Since then, the "operators" have had free rein to transfer the land they manage to "foreign investors", the ultima ratio of the Ukrainian economic system. Before that, they had to acquire the land, as they were now legally allowed to do, from the former "small investors" from the former collective farms. The operation, which was classic in its kind and went smoothly, as evidenced by the time lag between the adoption of the law by parliament and its implementation - that is, the acquisition by the US companies - naturally brought huge profits to some speculators and crooks close to the Kiev authorities.

US company BlackRock as “advisor” to the Ukrainian rulers

In November and December of last year, the Zelensky regime also initiated the sell-off of other sectors of the Ukrainian economy to the Americans. At the end of 2022, Ukraine announced that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had a video conference call with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. The two apparently agreed to "coordinate investment efforts to rebuild the war-torn nation," according to the American magazine The American Conservative. "Zelensky and Larry Fink have agreed to focus in the short term on coordinating the efforts of all potential investors and participants in the reconstruction of our country and to direct investments to the most relevant and effective sectors of the Ukrainian economy," the Ukrainian president's website quotes. Already in November, there was a meeting between the Ukrainian Minister of Economy and the corporation, where it was agreed that BlackRock FMA would advise the Ukrainian government, in particular the Ministry of Economy, on an investment roadmap for the reconstruction of the Ukrainian economy.

An earlier meeting between Zelensky and Fink in September, apparently arranged by Andrew Forrest of Fortescue Metals Group, laid the groundwork for the Ukrainian government's growing cooperation with BlackRock. The Ukrainian president and BlackRock's CEO reportedly discussed how to attract public and private investment to Ukraine.

BlackRock is buying up homes from the US middle and working classes

Back in the U.S., the New York-based investment firm has been making big headlines. A Wall Street Journal report over the summer claimed that BlackRock was one of several large investment firms causing distortions in the real estate market. The report detailed how BlackRock and similar firms were using their massive amounts of capital to buy up single-family homes, driving up prices in the process.

The above price increases have two immediate economic effects. First, higher housing costs benefit the properties already owned by BlackRock, particularly in areas where the company has invested heavily. The second effect is that the artificially high prices crowd out working-class families, leaving only the wealthy or investment firms with massive amounts of capital as the only players in the market. In Houston, for example, billionaire Fink reportedly accounts for a quarter of recent home purchases. He simply buys up entire neighborhoods and uses them as rental housing. "BlackRock is helping to create a permanent renter class, even though it has long been known that homeownership is one of the key elements in building wealth and preserving the American middle class," the paper summarizes.

"It is almost guaranteed that BlackRock is being paid handsomely by the Ukrainian government for advising on this reconstruction plan," the magazine states, adding: "And where is the Ukrainian government currently getting its funding when its economy is in ruins and war is an expensive endeavor? From the United States government, of course. By the end of the calendar year, the United States will have provided the Ukrainian government with $13 billion in direct budgetary support to avoid deficits and outright bankruptcy." It should be added that a similar amount is coming from the EU. This means that European taxpayers are also being allowed to contribute to the US locust corporations buying up Ukraine.

No interest in peace

So BlackRock is being paid by US taxpayers through the Ukrainian government to develop a plan to ensure the success of its future investments in Ukraine, made with money raised by the price gouging of American housing, the magazine concludes, and asks why the US financial and political elite would ever advocate for peace with such prospects - especially when they are also involved in the arms companies and are raking in billions more from the booming war business.

What lies behind the nationalist blue-yellow upheavals

The nationalist upsurges, Russophobia and the Bandera cult in Ukraine are being fuelled to put on a show of defending the country against the aggressor, while the thoroughly corrupt Zelensky regime is already working behind the scenes to sell out the country. The soldiers are dying a senseless death at the front while their commanders are already putting their money where their mouths are. Those who survive the war may not realise until very late that they have been lied to and deceived from head to toe.

Sources: Newspaper from Letzeburger Vollek / The American Conservative

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