“It felt like the worst America had to offer.” Those concerns only heightened when, at a pivotal moment in negotiations, one of Prince’s associates proferred in writing a “participation offer” that Novikov considered an attempted bribe.Īs the deals ran into resistance from the government in Ukraine, Prince’s allies faced bigger problems in New York City, where both Artemenko and Derkach are now under criminal investigation. “We had to wonder: Is this the best sort of partnership we can get from the Americans? This group of shady characters working for a close ally of Trump?” says Novikov, the former aide to Ukraine’s president. has accused of being an “active Russian agent.” Both Artemenko and Derkach worked to advance Prince’s business ventures in Ukraine last year. Another Prince ally in Kyiv was Andriy Derkach, a Ukrainian legislator whom the U.S. His Ukrainian business partner is Andriy Artemenko, who made headlines in 2017 by offering the Trump Administration a “peace plan” for the war in Ukraine that envisioned ways for the U.S. Prince’s choice of allies in Kyiv-two men with ties to Russia-raised particular alarm. Prince emerged as the American alternative, offering to save the factory from China’s clutches.īut the Ukrainians had serious concerns about working with Prince, according to three people involved in the negotiations.
The U.S., concerned about the rapid growth of the Chinese military, has long urged Ukraine not to complete the sale. China sought those engines to develop its air force. 2019, Prince has been competing against a Chinese firm to buy a Ukrainian factory called Motor Sich, which produces advanced aircraft engines.
As the Wall Street Journal first reported in Nov. Another deal would build a new munitions factory in Ukraine, while a third would consolidate Ukraine’s leading aviation and aerospace firms into a consortium that could compete with “the likes of Boeing and Airbus.”Īt least one of Prince’s offers to Ukraine appeared to be in line with U.S. One proposal would create a new private military company that would draw personnel from among the veterans of the ongoing war in eastern Ukraine. The documents detail several previously unreported ventures that Prince and his partners wanted the Ukrainian government to approve. Prince’s sister, Betsy DeVos, was appointed Secretary of Education, while Prince himself leveraged contacts in the White House to chase major deals around the world. Under the Trump Administration, Prince’s family-a powerful clan of right-wing Republican donors from Michigan-saw their influence rise. For nearly a quarter century, the former Navy SEAL has been a pioneer in the private military industry, raising armies in the Middle East and Africa, training commandos at his base in North Carolina and deploying security forces around the world for the State Department and the CIA. The audacity of the proposal fit with Prince’s record as a businessman.
ERIK PRINCE SPY NETWORK FULL
His full plan, dated June 2020 and obtained exclusively by TIME this spring, includes a “roadmap” for the creation of a “vertically integrated aviation defense consortium” that could bring $10 billion in revenues and investment. Prince also wanted a big piece of Ukraine’s military-industrial complex, including factories that make engines for fighter jets and helicopters. According to interviews with close associates and confidential documents detailing his ambitions, Prince hoped to hire Ukraine’s combat veterans into a private military company. It soon became clear that Prince wanted a lot from Ukraine.
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