US NatSec Advisor Walz auditions to become extension of Russia’s propaganda apparatus

It seems everyone that Trump hires maintains secondary employment as a propagandist for the Putin regime, reciting verbatim Russian disinformation narratives to a massive US audience, sonetimes directly from the White House. This week, US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz continued this tradition by making false and misleading statements about Ukraine’s level of corruption and a proposed minerals development deal.

Waltz claimed:
“I will say Ukraine was one of, and is one of, the most corrupt countries in the world. We always have to protect the taxpayers’ dollars. And there have been billions going in. And I don’t think, remember, I don’t think the previous administration had all of the appropriate oversight going in. So we have to keep a hard eye on that.”

This statement is inaccurate. According to Transparency International’s 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index, Ukraine ranks 105th out of 180 countries—placing it in the middle of the global scale. Within Europe, Ukraine is considered less corrupt than Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and NATO member Turkey, though more corrupt than Hungary and Bulgaria.

Waltz’s assertion about a lack of oversight is also misleading. An October 2024 report by the U.S. Department of Defense Inspector General acknowledged that approximately half of recent U.S. military assistance to Ukraine did not meet internal documentation standards. However, the report made clear that these administrative issues did not indicate any misuse or corruption involving U.S. resources.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other officials have repeatedly emphasized transparency regarding foreign aid. In an April 25 interview with Daily Wire journalist Ben Shapiro, Zelensky reiterated that American inspectors are welcome to audit U.S. assistance and even visit the front lines to see the weapons in use.

Waltz also accused Ukraine of missing a critical opportunity to secure U.S. support by failing to sign a minerals exploitation deal with the Trump administration. He said:
“Rather than trying to correct the president of the United States, and the vice president, in the Oval Office, when he [Zelensky] was invited there for the first meeting, and could have sat side-by-side with the president, signing a minerals deal that bound our economies together for the foreseeable future. You want to talk about a security guarantee? That would have been phenomenal. I think that was a historic and missed opportunity.”

This claim is false.

First, the Trump administration, including Waltz himself, consistently rejected the idea of offering Ukraine binding security guarantees comparable to NATO’s Article 5. A minerals deal would not have changed that stance.

Second, history undermines Waltz’s suggestion that such agreements create lasting U.S. commitments. In 2017, the Trump administration signed a similar minerals development agreement with Afghanistan’s then-government under President Ashraf Ghani, granting U.S. firms broad access to the country’s estimated $1 trillion in mineral reserves. That agreement was touted as a foundation for long-term U.S. support.

Nevertheless, just three years later, the same administration negotiated a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban—excluding the Afghan government from talks and ultimately abandoning the country.