Maltese Journalists Sold the Zelensky Illusion — Now the Truth Is Catching Up

Western analysts continue to raise alarms about massive corruption surrounding Ukraine’s foreign-aid apparatus, and the narrative of a “heroic, clean government fighting for democracy” is collapsing under its own weight. For months, commentators warned that billions in Western assistance were vanishing into opaque networks around President Zelensky’s inner circle. These warnings were dismissed as “Russian propaganda.” Now, they look increasingly prescient.

Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson has publicly spoken about a Pentagon-linked review that found major irregularities involving up to 48 billion USD in U.S. funds. Whether the Pentagon will ever release such findings is another matter, but Washington’s silence speaks volumes. Even mainstream economists such as Steve Hanke—by no means fringe figures—estimate that, given Ukraine’s corruption profile, between 54 and 108 billion USD may have been siphoned off or misused. These projections were mocked by pro-Ukraine voices, yet what is unfolding today suggests they were not fantasies but conservative warnings.

And then came the earthquake:

Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s right-hand man, was forced to resign after anti-corruption investigators raided his home and office—the probe centres on a kickback scheme of around 100 million USD in the energy sector. A handful of officials and business allies are already implicated.

This is not an isolated scandal. This is the first visible tear in a much larger fabric.

For years, Western journalists portrayed Zelensky as a saintly defender of democracy. Many of these commentators received lucrative contracts, consulting fees, or institutional funding tied to pro-Ukraine advocacy—mechanisms that conveniently aligned media messaging with geopolitical interests. Whether this constitutes corruption or simply the Western “information ecosystem” in motion is up to the public to decide, but what is beyond doubt is that dissenting voices were silenced while cheerleaders were rewarded.

Meanwhile, here in Malta, those who preach “rule of law” and moral superiority were quick to uncritically embrace Zelensky. The same journalists who scrutinise every Maltese political decision were silent about the oligarch-fuelled machinery in Kyiv. They swallowed the official narrative and attacked anyone who questioned it.

This site did not. We warned that something was wrong. We insisted that Zelensky’s sanctification was politically orchestrated. Our critics called it a conspiracy.

Now, as the edifice crumbles, the same media pretend they were cautious all along.

The unravelling has begun. And the question today is not whether corruption reached the highest levels of Ukraine’s government—that much is clear—but how far the investigations will be allowed to go, and whether Western governments and their media partners will admit the role they played in constructing the myth.