Jonathan Savage talks Russia's renewed attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
As we were talking about earlier, Marjorie Taylor Green has
come out and said a couple of things about Donald Trump.
As Roy and I were talking about the foreign policy issue,
and you know, I know everybody's like poor Ukraine. You know,
Russia's attacking them. Putin's mean, but you know it used
to be part of Russia and that's their business. And
I kind of get where Marjorie Taylor Green's coming from

(00:20):
on can we just leave some things globally alone and
leave it go? But now we're involved, So there we
have it. But let's not forget Ukraine for years. Corruptors
can be the government, and here we go, one hundred
million dollars worth of corruption investigation going on.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Now, Oh, let's check it out.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Jonathan Savage, our Fox correspondence, in on this one. Jonathan, So,
I guess this involves their nuclear energy program. There a
bunch of officials grabbing money. What's going on?

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Yeah? No, President Bloodimerzelenski was elected on a promise to
clamp down on corruption. But no, some people who were
or are close associates or Presidents Zelenski have been implicated
in an alleged embezzlement. Ski and the Energy sector worth
about one hundred million dollars. President Zelenski has called this

(01:08):
absolutely unacceptable. His energy and justice ministers have resigned, although
they deny doing anything wrong. But it's coming at a
very difficult time because while the energy sector is implicated
in a corruption scheme, many Ukrainians are having to live
with blackouts in the cold and the dark as a
result of Russian attacks on the energy facilities.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
So who's doing the investigation?

Speaker 1 (01:32):
If Zelenski is run in the place, how did all
this come out and what's the potential consequences.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Well, there's actually quite a lot to this. The report
came out last week from these investigators anti corruption authorities
within Ukraine. But President Zelenski has been criticized in recent
months for his attitude towards corruption because earlier this year
he tried to limit the powers of Ukraine's anti corruption authorities.

(02:00):
He said he needed to do it to remove Russian
influence from anti corruption efforts. But what we saw was
not just an outcry from European leaders saying, hang on
a second, you're meant to be tough on corruption, why
are you limiting their powers, but also street protests against
Vladimir's Lensky, something we hadn't seen since the start of
the war. Presidence Lenski rode back on these attempts to
limit the powers of the anti corruption authorities, but certainly

(02:23):
it was a pr blunder for him, and it doesn't
look good now this further embezzlement scheme has come to light.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah, it's going to be an ugly situation there when
you know you've got a history of nothing but corruption
going on, You're trying to be mister coole and you
know I'm above board now, you know I need the
US to help us out because we're good people.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
And a sudden no, you're not.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
So I can imagine there may be some Ukrainians going
you know what, I'll be honest with you, I'll take Pootin.
At this point, this guy's driving me nuts here. So
we talk in potential regime change here. I mean, it's
not a dictatorship, but.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Still I don't think the presidents Lenski's position is under
immediate threat. His allies in Europe are saying that they're
concerned about this, they're alarmed by it, and they want
to talk to him about it, as you'd expect, but
they're saying that they do have confidence, some of them
in the Ukrainian leadership's attempts to crack down on corruption.
But there's no doubt that this is going to dampen

(03:16):
enthusiasm among people who have donated to Ukraine's energy sector,
but also a morale below for those Ukrainians living in
the cold, in the dark, they might lose trust in
their administration.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, okay, buddy, I appreciate the update. Thank you. Jonathan Savage,
our Fox correspondent in London,