George Soros Undermines Ukrainian Sovereignty

The latest assault on the independence of Ukraine, a state long held in servitude to its Russian neighbor, comes from a pair of nonprofit organizations funded by George Soros.

According to Drew Johnson at Protect Internet Freedom, a free media outfit, the Hungarian-born billionaire is behind the work of two anti-natural gas groups attacking Burisma, a large Kiev-based energy producer. Transparency International and the Anti-Corruption Action Center have received “hundreds of thousands of dollars from Soros-funded foundations,” Johnson reports, for their campaign to propagandize and smear Burisma into oblivion. From 2013-2015, the Open Society Institute—an organization that funds numerous left-wing causes—gave Transparency International over $1 million. Between 2013-2016, Soros’ International Renaissance Foundation gave the Anti-Corruption Center another $210,000.

Ukraine relies on Burisma’s natural gas production for more than heating homes. The company has invested billions of dollars in recent years in ramping up energy production in the hopes of weaning the country off its reliance on Russian gas imports. To this end, the company reported an increase in domestic production by 30 percent in 2014. Russia, which provides roughly one quarter of the European Union’s natural gas consumption, pipes 80 percent of its gas through Ukraine, granting Moscow the ability to close the spigots at its leisure. Russian President Vladimir Putin exercised this power in 2009 when it suspended exports to Ukraine for nearly two weeks.

If the Soros-backed groups are successful in defanging Burisma’s gas production, they will ironically accomplish the very thing Soros claims he opposes: Ukrainian dependence on Russia.

Soros, a prominent funder of left-wing causes in the United States and Europe, is a vocal critic of Vladimir Putin’s regime. He’s also a proponent of Ukrainian independence. It remains a mystery why he seems to think that rendering the Ukraine wholly reliant on Moscow will advance that country’s freedom.

Capital Research Center has covered George Soros’ support for extremist groups and causes, including the billionaire’s personal war with the government of Hungary. As CRC’s Jacob Grandstaff writes, the government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has come under fire from the Soros-funded Open Society Foundation for opposing illegal immigration to his country. In response, Orbán launched a “massive public relations campaign” against the Soros, accusing him of promoting a “national security risk” by encouraging illegal immigration to Hungary.