Retired U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt told Newsmax that Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is fighting a war on two fronts — one against the Russians, and the other against corruption in his government.
He made his comments on Tuesday's "Wake Up America." They came after a CNN report said Zelenskyy "fired a slew" of top officials amid a corruption scandal regarding the procurement of wartime supplies, representing the largest shake-up since the Russian invasion last year.
Asked what Zelenskyy can do to get corruption in Ukraine under control, Holt said: "This is now for President Zelenskyy basically a two-front war. He's fighting the Russians on one front. He's fighting corruption on another front. It's really rampant.
"You can tell by the way he's had to gut his inner circle or his government around him. But what's he's got to do now is quickly unify the new folks in these positions, and he's really got to show the world the transparency that we need to see about how these weapons transactions go and what the controls are in place.
"And then we have a role to do in the West. We always talk about, Let's supply them with tanks and jets, and let's give them bullets and bombs, but where's the money going? Whose NGOs [non-governmental organizations] are receiving the humanitarian dollars — and how are they being spent?"
Holt also said that the U.S. and NATO cannot afford to jeopardize their own readiness by supplying military equipment to Ukraine.
"NATO and the U.S. need to examine their own readiness as a result of suppling Ukraine with military equipment," Holt said. "We need to have hearings.
"I hope classified in closed doors to discuss what the current states of readiness are, not just in the United States, but also in NATO, and to make sure that these major guarantors of world security are not depleting their own readiness."
And regarding whether the U.S. would be training Ukrainians in Ukraine on how to operate the new Abrams tanks from the U.S., he said: "That training has to occur some place. Will it occur in Ukraine? I would hope that our national security team, led by the president, would stand up and look us in the eye and tell us if that's necessary. If we're not hearing from them, then we would imagine it's taking place in Germany."
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