The London Crier: Zelenskyy acquires Highgrove House, Former Residence of King Charles, for £20M

rxh4n1: "Corrupt, maybe.
Stupid, no.
There is something really wrong in Ukraine.
They have vast mineral and agricultural wealth, a large industrial base, an educated population comparable to Canada’s in size.
Yet it is the poorest nation in Europe."

Corruption Perception Index:

Let's start here:
According to Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index, during the 1990's Ukraine was among the most corrupt countries on earth, easily as corrupt as the very Mother of Corruption, Russia itself.
Over the past 30 years, Ukraine has slowly, slowly improved itself, to the point where it is today at roughly the half-way point, equivalent to countries like Bosnia and Herzegovinian, Serbia, Brazil and India.

Russia also improved itself, somewhat, but today remains in the worst 20% of countries' perceived corruption.

Democracy Index:

In The Economist Democracy Index, Ukraine also stands roughly half-way, as a hybrid regime, similar to Mexico, while Russia and China are near the bottom 10% of worst authoritarian regimes.
Like the USA, Ukraine's Democracy Index has fallen slightly in recent years, though for different reasons.
In Ukraine's case their Democracy Index fell after Russia's 2014 invasion and again after Russia's 2022 invasion.

In GDP-PPP per capita, Ukraine also stands about halfway, along with countries like Vietnam and Sri Lanka, while Russia is in the top 30%, equivalent to Greece and Bulgaria.

The key factor to remember about Ukraine's economy is that GDP fell almost 30% after Russia's 2022 invasion and has been recovering at a very slow pace, such that today it is still down by 25%.
GDP per capita looks better because there are fewer Ukrainians today than in 2021.

Russia's total GDP is also down slightly, though still ten times that of Ukraine.

GDP per capita:

nopardons: "Nobody here was cheering on Russian!"

I think you and others here have done a great service in debunking the thread's original pro-Russia lies.
But I don't understand this comment -- of course others here are pro-Russians, regardless of how often or loudly they claim otherwise.

That's because, when a man is being murdered, or a woman raped, you cannot stand by and proclaim yourself "neutral" -- "neutral" means, in effect, supporting the murderer or rapist.

That's what's happening in Ukraine, and that's what our allegedly "pro-Americans" are doing here in proclaiming "neutrality" or "America First".

You can see it in their posts -- it's so glaringly obvious what these people are doing, a blind man couldn't fail to understand.

Why else would they so eagerly buy into Russian propaganda lies?
Why else would they accumulate and amplify the lies, to spread wider at every opportunity?
Why else would they launch personal assaults on posters here attempting to defend Ukraine as a country and Ukrainians as people?

So, I think that, to defend those others as "not pro-Russian" is both incorrect and eventually as disingenuous as they are.

One of the milder typical personal insult-assaults launched against pro-Ukrainians:

This is false. Now someone spend some time on what DID occur and still is— obamaumao the first muzzie in chief was GIFTED with a mansion in Qatar. This is a fact, revealed by a US Admiral who was removed from command and his career destroyed.

obamaumao is a TOOL of the Muslim Brotherhood, and his Iranian handler Val Jarrett is still at it for Iran. The day needs to come soon for all the embeds and the mack daddy to be rolled up. It takes a good bit of searching to find the buried story. The house is still there.

John Bolton spent a lot of time in Qatar- photo’d walking around on the streets with no security. wonder how that could be in the financial escrow country for world Islamofascism.

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