comment: >
  
  No, lol
context: Holy shit the comments in this thread are all so weird. I feel like I'm reading multiple AI chatbots arguing with each other >
  
  Its actually remarkable how much the quality of comments change when the same story is posted to r/news vs r/worldnews depending on the topic being posted. You'll really notice the trolls in action. >
  
  Which is suppose to be higher quality? >
  
  World News is much larger, and therefore is targeted by bot farms more for misinformation campaigns.
  News is smaller, but there was a large push by the alt right during the Trump era to try and take it over. There are still remnants of that in the comment section with people with ultra right-wing views cropping up more often then usually expected.
  So the World News bots often seem more credible. >
  
  Yeah, /r/news is still significantly astroturfed by the far-right, just watch what happens when crime stories with a black suspect is posted. Often the top 2-3 posts (with thousands of upvotes) are blatantly racist. Though I guess it was worse under Trump.
  On /r/worldnews we mostly have pro-Russian / pro-Erdogan / pro-CCP astroturfers. A few years back Iran had surprising influence as well. They don't have the numbers to significantly influence votes of the top posts, but scroll a bit down and you'll often see them having great impact. This is especially true for issues fewer people care about, where they don't get much pushback from real users and can easily form the narrative, just look at pretty much any post that deals with China as an example. >
  
  How do you discern an astroturfer from someone who just has the opposite opinion? Just curious. >
  
  You can't conclusively determine that on an individual account level, after all there are probably a few actual Nazis/alt-righters there who don't co-ordinate outside the site. We can see which Reddit posts get linked to on far-right social media though. It's also highly suspicious when certain types of posts will have large numbers of fresh accounts posting far-right propaganda. >
  
  Pro-Russia or Pro-CCP content is never upvoted on this sub, honestly idk what you're talking about. Unless you're talking about comments calling for a bit more nuance then literal "CHINA = BAD" level spam which is just intellectually lazy and lowers the level of discourse on the sub.
  And I've never seen a pro-Erdogan post on this sub, like ever. >
  
  Yeah and I'm sure there is no astroturfing in the other direction cause we're the good guys, right guys? >
  
  Kind of hard to misuse a HIMAR and have no one notice >
  
  USA provides the Intel, UA picks the targets. The End ⚰ >
  
  you mean UA ends the targets >
  
  Also yes >
  
  The point of propaganda is to keep everyone chasing their tail and fighting against brandolinis law. If they keep the pressure on they win by default because any data that validates one conspiracy theory instantly validates 99 others that have no verifiable data. >
  
  Brandolini's Law is the reason dislike and downvote buttons are so valuable on social media. YouTube made a huge mistake removing theirs. >
  
  It was not a mistake... they knew damn well what they are doing.. >
  
  Which is…? >
  
  Mostly running cover for corporation's videos that weren't popular but were highly monetizable. >
  
  But with the bonus of further boosting propaganda, pseudo science, fake/dangerous lifehacks, and other videos that were already useful for drawing people further into the YouTube sphere of influence. >
  
  I would imagine during wartime, you would have an incentive to use funds properly, since the alternative is starving to death and dying to your enemies. >
  
  But the US is directly supplying weapons, not just dropping off billions in cash >
  
  I’m not saying they do this but weapons can be and have been misappropriated and sold off before to black markets. It’s quite common. Though it would be with small arms and stuff they can actually smuggle out without getting caught. I doubt it would be significant if there were.
  Also this is why audits are important. To prove critical weapons and equipment aren’t misappropriated. >
  
  The USA has a fairly decent method to help with corruption avoidance in the military. It would not surprise me if they shared it with Ukraine to help them. >
  
  Lol you do know about ockams razor right? >
  
  This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 61%. (I'm a bot)
  
  
  The United States has no evidence that US funds are being misused in Ukraine, but will continue to work closely with the Ukrainian authorities to ensure appropriate safeguards are in place to prevent corruption.
  "We have no indications that US funds have been misused in Ukraine. We welcome the ongoing efforts of the Ukrainian authorities to work with us to ensure appropriate safeguards are in place that US assistance reaches those for whom it is intended," reads the comment by Megan Apper, a spokeswoman for the Department.
  She added that the US Treasury would continue to work closely with the World Bank, as well as with Ukraine and other partners, to track US funds "To confirm that they are being used as intended".
  
  
  Extended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Ukraine^#1 funds^#2 State^#3 Bank^#4 World^#5 >
  
  Trollfarm already in full swing in these comments. >
  
  You think that Ukraine, one of Europeans most corrupt nations behind Russia and Belarus, PRE-WAR, just magically solved corruption and there is no money laundering? That’s a lot of faith you got. >
  
  So they're better than Russia and Belarus? Sounds good to me. >
  
  They are 3rd behind those 2. Nothing to be proud of. A lot of money will go missing. That’s just the nature of things. >
  
  
  A lot of money will go missing
  
  Prove your claim. >
  
  He can't and won't >
  
  It's worth noting that Ukraine went up like 2-30~ places in the global transparency index. 
  The war is actually helping to a degree reform the Ukrainian government. >
  
  Being able to even measure those metrics in a country at war is kind of laughable.
  That being said, the optics of being seen as corrupt by fellow Ukrainians has never been more dangerous for the previously corrupt. >
  
  A national aversion to corruption among the general populace is already a huge obstacle for people that want to do shady shit.
  Corruption will never go away, but at least the worst excesses will be curbed amd that's how things change. >
  
  I’m pro-Ukraine but a degree of corruption is expected. I’m a OEF veteran and I say a ton of corruption in person, all while U.S officials said similar things about how competent our Afghan allies were at the time. 
  Even if it were true I wouldn’t expect the U.S openly accuse Ukraine of misusing aid >
  
  It might actually be the best investment the US military has ever made in its entire history, maybe besides the manhattan project. I would bet every American general would agree with that assessment 🤷 >
  
  It’s definitely the most economical war we never entered. For pennies on the dollar we are completing a number of objectives. Gaining a new motivated NATO ally, fucking over a strategic adversary, securing weapons deals for the forceable future. >
  
  Forget economical. This is the most righteous war we've entered since WW2. We are gaining badass new friends, stopping a bitter enemy, all at the cost to 0 zero American Lives.
  It's the geopolitical bargain of the century. 
  Our enthusiasm to immediately and fully throw our military industrial complex behind Ukraine's War of Survival, it's as if the United States has a score to settle on geopolitical humiliations with Russia. >
  
  
  the United States has a score to settle on geopolitical humiliations with Russia.
  
  It is very very personal, after Russia unabashedly propped up charlatans in American and European elections, had a huge impact in causing brexit, and caused millions of additional deaths worldwide from covid by a massive anti-vax information campaign.  Burying the Russian military and canceling Russia on the world stage has been a real delight, a real bargain, and was a long time coming. >
  
  
  
  It is very convenient to blame Russia for everything. The thing is, the root cause of the problems you listed is: lots of people are very stupid. And stupid people create ridiculous conspiracy theories just because they are stupid and have nothing else to do. Adding to that, 2013-2014 invasion of Ukraine (the one noone gave a fuck about) happened during Obama's term, who doesn't seem as a Putin's project.
  
  
  Russian army is still there. The government can print money and mobilize quite a few millions from poor regions if  needed. Getting complacent can result in delays of military aid and initiative shifts in the war. So in fact, saying that Russia is losing to the outside media is beneficial for Russia (NATO is very afraid to raise the stakes too fast).Usual russians don't read medium written in English.
  
  
  While a lot of things are said, fact is that only a small minority of companies have quit the russian market. For the rest of western companies... business as usual. Russian economywas predicted to get obliterated by August 2022, and it is February 2023 already. Once again, things that are written in medium don't correlate to the real situation. >
  
  
  It is very convenient to blame Russia for everything.
  
  And it is also the truth, there was a time when Russian part of the internet fell off grid for couple hours(it is suspected Russia was testing China like approach). And I've seen people mostly from US(maybe cos of my bias as using popular in us sites) saying that there was less hate mongering and stuff like anti-vax propaganda and political instability during that small period.
  Obv stupid people do stupid stuff everywhere, there would be just less of it without Russia's information war. >
  
  Source. >
  
  Source to the time they tested cutting the connection or existence of troll farms? >
  
  We didn't see it in Iraq or Afganistan for a while either. >
  
  It is quite different. Ukraine has mature demoxratic society, who is dying for liberty and democracy. Neither Afghanistan's nor Iraqis society  new what this words  mean. >
  
  Protecting a sovereign country ✅
  Protecting western democracy ✅
  Fueling the military complex ✅
  Defeating authoritarian government, priceless. >
  
  giving the world the best idea of what modern warfare looks like to people not in the military ✅️ being the most document war in world history ✅️ >
  
  Good, let’s keep it that way and help crush Russia. >
  
  Zero evidence of misuse of funds. Can we finally put an end to this dumbass Russian talking point? >
  
  I see you copy pasting this all over the thread. What is you agenda? Are you trying to imply those are examples that support Russian narrative why Ukraine shouldn’t receive aid? Or are you saying that US auditors are less informed than you? Or maybe you want to imply they are lying when they say there is no sign of misuse? >
  
  You said so many words but never actually committed to any statement. There is a long range between claiming something is as transparent as Norway and that the aid is stolen. You presented unrelated corruption examples and that is supposed to mean what exactly in relation to what US auditors said? Either you say they lied or these are not related and relevant to the provided aid. >
  
  Auditors concluded there is no misuse of provided aid. They did not say “Ukraine is on the level of Norway in terms of its immunity to corruption”. You are the one who came up with this bullshit comparison. Talk about weak Reddit logic. Auditors addressed specific allegation which is a favorite russian propaganda talking point. And you seem to say something very unclear about them either lying or I don’t know what. >
  
  Now you are lying about what I said. How desperate. Did I lie about you making up the Norway comparison? You pretended like somebody compared Ukraine to Norway same way you are lying right now about what I said. Your fingers are slipping, tovarishch. >
  
  Didn’t the president of ukraine have to fire some of his cabinet members for misusing funds? >
  
  I mean I'm sure you know the headlines doesn't mean there is literally no misuse at all. In something involving so many people there are always some bad actors but it's about the spread. Most of the funds are weapons anyway not cash >
  
  I'm all for us continuing to fund them but to say there's no misuse would be naive. >
  
  No signs means that it isn't detectable. This isn't saying there is 0% corruption and it never existed. The title literally implies exactly what your comment is saying except anyone who is knowledgeable on the topic already knows this.
  Congratulations on having such a redundant comment! >
  
  Here come the Qcumbers >
  
  Hahaha love that! Stealing the word! >
  
  I’d feel better if they identified misuse and corrected it, because let’s be honest, there’s gonna be misuse of that much money going through that many government hands. >
  
  Literal every single “war” there was misused funds not to mention sky high profits. 
  Pentagon/DoD cant even be audited, for years now,
  so how can you say there is no misuse. If Ukraine can get 100% accountability, then wheres the billions if not trillions back from Afghanistan and Iraq? Wheres their accountability? Anyone remember the briefcases full of cash on Karzais front door? I did three tours and damaged my mind and body, i want my money back then, especially from the war profiteers. 
  Any sane person should never believe this, theres absolutely no way not even one cent was misused. 
  Ukraine deserved the aid and help, dont get me wrong, and Putin is a awful human being, but to say theres not even one cent of misused money is laughable. There no chance in hell this is a accurate report. >
  
  That's not at all what the report is claiming. The report says they can't find any misuse, not that it does not exist. >
  
  Then they arent trying, because historically there is misuse just based on previous events. I dont believe this for a second.  There is always going to be misuse, no matter what or whatever safeguards there are. 
  Ukraine deserves aid just based upon principle alone but theres no way that this report is truthful. 
  This is deliberately falsifying statements, just so it looks better to the public. >
  
  I think the point to take from this is that while there obviously is misuse, we don't live in a perfect world after all, it's minor enough to not be easily detectable, which is great. "No signs" doesn't mean "nothing at all", so I think it's a stretch to call the report completely untruthful. Could it have been worded better to be more transparent? Sure, but that doesn't mean it's "deliberately falsifying statements". >
  
  I just don’t believe that >
  
  So.....
  In the first time in history, nobody fucked around with war time American money.
  If you truly believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. If you're interested. >
  
  In Ukraine, a notoriously corrupt country.
  I’m all about fucking the Russians up by sending equipment over there but when you tell me there’s 0 misuse of funds I’m gonna doubt it. >
  
  Where does it say there is 0 misuse of funds? Just that there is no evidence meaning there is a range from 0 to minimal. >
  
  They literally fired a general last week for misuse of funds when buying rations. >
  
  It wasn't a general but a deputy minister which was fired for buying fucking chicken eggs over the market price. We must have a different definition of minimal.
  And almost certainly acquisition of the damn eggs isn't where the US funds are allocated. >
  
  Lol right? 
  Russian missuse of war funds: yachts for all the oligarchs
  Ukranian missuse: you spent too much on eggs, we must fire you even though it's wartime. 
  Very different. >
  
  Great, next let's check for misuse of Russian funds in America >
  
  
  We have no indications that US funds have been misused in Ukraine.
  
  Wonder what exactly their investigation consisted of. >
  
  When the headline is the joke >
  
  Oh, it probably has to be getting misused at least a little. I thought that was a given going in, and I still say it's worth it for all the reasons other people posted. >
  
  Anyone with more than 4 braincells knows there is some misuse. That's inevitable but it's about how widely spread it is. It's like with the voter fraud. We say there was no voter fraud even tho of course there were a few bad people. >
  
  I’m not sure I believe it. That said I wouldn’t want to be the commander caught hocking badly needed weapons and ammo. Maybe there’s enough social pressure to prevent things like that from happening en masse. >
  
  The consequences of misusing the funds would also be bad for those misusing the funds. >
  
  the pentagon has never passed an audit and you people believe them when they say they aren’t misusing funds? ridiculous >
  
  Yeah right lol. Europe has missused American dollars for decades. >
  
  Biden administration finds no signs of misuse of the billions in funds that the Biden administration sent to Ukraine. Whew, what a relief! >
  
  No, the US treasury. Not the biden administration. And before you even think to say "well, they report to the biden administration" I'd ask you to look at Trump appointed judges and the whole jan6th thing and see how thats going for him. >
  
  The russo-ukraine war is possibly the greatest geopolitical boon for the US and we would be fools to not take advantage of it. >
  
  I remember the US saying the same about the now  Ghost Afghanistan army.. >
  
  Well the US might not be able to find misuse of funds - but the Ukaranians sure did.
  Only last week in Ukraine - some dozen officials quit their posts after allegations and probes into cases ranging from bribery, to mismanagement of aid funds for purchasing food, to embezzlement, to driving expensive cars while common people suffer under wartime conditions.
  A top presidential adviser and four deputy ministers - among these two defense officials, along with five regional governors were forced out of their posts. 
  Deputy Prosecutor General Oleskiy Symonenko
  Deputy Minister for Development of Communities and Territories Ivan Lukeryu
  Deputy Minister for Development of Communities and Territories Vyacheslav Negoda
  Deputy Minister for Social Policy Vitaliy Muzychenk
  The regional governors of Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Sumy and Kherson.
  The Ukrainian Defense ministry also announced the resignation of deputy minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov, who was in charge of the army's logistical support, due to accusations it was signing food contracts at inflated prices.
  Ukraine ranks 116 out of 180 countries on the annual Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International.
  Edit - layout >
  
  Can you give out sources for this? In English if possible. >
  
  Weve investigated ourselves and found there was absolutely no wrongdoing >
  
  AMERICA investigated UKRAINE… the fact that they lent/gave them the funds is inconsequential. Dumbass. >
  
  I would say it’s pretty consequential. Dumbass.
  There’s an incentive for the US to tell the people that the funds are being used properly. Dumbass.
  It no different than the leader of a ponzu scheme telling everyone not to worry about where their money is. Dumbass. >
  
  The US wants Ukraine to use the money effectively, wasting it means US interest aren't being served. >
  
  Some of the money is absolutely being misused, skimmed or whatever other corruption vehicle to make a buck.
  I don't care. The ROI on the pitiful amount of money we have spent (compared to our total budget and our military) is through the fucking roof. We literally couldn't spend the money better ourselves. Not only that, but the money is going to a good cause. Stopping Russia, letting the world come together against this type of awful behavior, and strengthening NATO. 
  It is also a good message to China about how the world would unite against them if they tried this shit with Taiwan. >
  
  It's fair to say that there is some misuse. However we know that America sends advisors to monitor arms and funds sent to Ukraine >
  
  Oh, there is probably a lot of misuse going on.  But it is war, and such a thing is expected, perhaps even accepted/tolerated up to a point. >
  
  wish Ukranian oligarchs would match the US financial help..richest 12 oligarchs have a combined wealth of 65 billion..
  It would be only fair to give back to the country they stolen from >
  
  Not a single instance where funds were misused or disappeared? Of course not >
  
  Even if funds were being misused, the US still wouldn't or couldn't stop sending money, and the US would still lie about it just to maintain war support. Just telling it how it is. >
  
  
  the US still wouldn't or couldn't stop sending money
  
  Why not? >
  
  Lol >
  
  So you have no idea either >
  
  I'm just tired of explaining shit to people who don't put in any of the mental work to figure it out themselves. I don't even care that you think I don't know. >
  
  you care enough to respond >
  
  An astute observation. I'm just enjoying myself. >
  
  Weird >
  
  And I see that you're enjoying yourself as well. Just perfect.