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Paul Manafort’s Lucrative Ukraine Years Are Central to the Russia Probe

Trump’s former campaign manager had receded into the background, but there’s renewed interest in the millions he made promoting Kremlin-friendly interests.

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Photographer: Mark Peterson/Redux

Jim Slattery arrived at the Stalin-era presidential headquarters in Kiev, Ukraine, with an unusual gift for the nation’s strongman leader: a bust of Abraham Lincoln.

It was March 2013, and the former U.S. congressman had traveled to Ukraine to persuade President Viktor Yanukovych, an ally of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, to free Yanukovych’s arch rival from prison. The statuette came with a hopeful message: You, Slattery told the president, could be the Lincoln of Ukraine—a leader who binds up the nation’s wounds.

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