Above, a map of Ukraine in green, with territory occupied or annexed by Russia in light green to the right — i.e., the eastern Donbas and the Crimean peninsula in the southeast. President Biden vows a fight for democracy, but recent history calls that into question.

Corruption and supposed efforts to reduce it have become a neoconservative weapon of choice with which to operate the controls on the funding sluice gates to acolytes of the U.S.-led international neoconservative empire.