Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a report in the American "Substack" website, which claimed that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was aware of the rampant corruption in Ukraine and the embezzlement of American aid.

The report said the Ukrainian government was using American taxpayer money to buy diesel from Russia to fuel its army. Hersh said that Volodymyr Zelensky "was buying fuel from Russia, the country with which he and Washington are at war, and that the Ukrainian president and many of his entourage siphoned off untold millions of US dollars intended for diesel fuel payments."

Hersh said that, according to one CIA analyst estimate, at least $400 million in funds was misappropriated last year. Sources told Hersh that Ukrainian officials are also "competing" to set up front companies for export contracts for private arms dealers around the world.

According to the report, "the issue of corruption was raised during a meeting between CIA Director William Burns and Zelensky himself last January." An intelligence official with direct knowledge of the meeting told Hersh that Burns had sent a startling message to Zelensky.

"The top generals and government officials in Kyiv were enraged at what they saw as Zelensky's greed, so Burns told the Ukrainian president, because he was taking a larger share of the skim money than the generals were going for," Hersh wrote.

During the meeting, Burns presented Zelensky with a list of 35 generals and senior government officials whose corruption the CIA was aware of. Zelensky responded by firing 10 officials involved in blatant corruption. "The 10 he got rid of were brazenly bragging about the money they had - driving around Kiev in their new Mercedes," the intelligence official said.

Hersh said Zelensky's "lukewarm reaction" and "lack of interest" in the White House angered some US intelligence officials. The intelligence official who spoke with Hersh criticized President Biden's two key foreign policy advisers, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.

"They have no experience, no judgment, and no moral integrity. They just tell lies, make up stories." Diplomatic denials are another matter, the official said. The official also said there was a "breakdown of a major rift between the White House leadership and the intelligence community."

The report said the dispute began in the fall when the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline was blown up. According to Hersh's previous report, President Biden ordered the operation that brought down the pipelines. "The destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline was never discussed, or even known in advance, by the intelligence community," the official said.

The official said there was "no strategy to end the war" within the Biden administration and offered harsh criticism of Blinken and Sullivan.

"Burns is not the problem," the official said. The problem is with Biden and his key aides — Blinken, Sullivan and their loyalists — who see those who criticize Zelensky as pro-Putin. “We are against evil. Ukraine will fight until the last military missile disappears, and it is still fighting. And here is Biden telling America that we will fight, no matter how long it takes and whatever it takes.”

Hersh's report comes after a series of top secret documents leaked from the Pentagon and other government agencies surfaced online. Some of the documents show US planning for the war in Ukraine and reveal US skepticism about Kiev's ability to mount a successful counterattack, offering a very different view of Ukraine's capabilities than what Biden officials have said publicly.