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Ihor Kolomoyskyi

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Ihor Kolomoyskyi
Ігор Коломойський
Ihor Kolomoyskyi2.jpg
Kolomoyskyi in 2013
Born (1963-02-13) 13 February 1963 (age 60)
Other namesIgor Kolomoisky
Alma materDnepropetrovsk Metallurgical Academy[2]
Occupation(s)Businessman, politician
Known forCo-owner of PrivatBank
Owner of FC Dnipro [3]
SpouseIrina Kolomoyskaya
Children2
Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast
In office
2 March 2014[2] – 24 March 2015
Preceded byDmytro Kolesnikov[4][5]
Succeeded byValentyn Reznichenko (acting)[6]

Ihor Valeriyovych Kolomoyskyi (Ukrainian: Ігор Валерійович Коломойський, romanizedIhor Valereriyovych Kolomoyskyi; Hebrew: איגור קולומויסקי; born 13 February 1963) is a Ukrainian-born Israeli-Cypriot billionaire businessman, once considered the leading oligarch in Ukraine.

Already an entrepreneur in the last years of Soviet Ukraine, in 2010 Kolomoyskyi was rated as the second richest person in Ukraine, and as one of the country’s most influential oligarchs. In 1992, he had co-founded PrivatBank and its informal extension of companies, Privat Group, and he subsequently acquired extensive media holdings. Between 2014 and 2016, Kolomoyskyi served as Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast until his dismissal by President Petro Poroshenko. That year, his undercapitalised bank was declared a threat to Ukraine’s financial security and taken into state ownership. In 2019, Kolomoyskyi's media power and funding supported Volodymyr Zelenskyy's successful presidential campaign to unseat Poroshenko.

In 2020, he was indicted in the United States, on charges related to large-scale bank fraud. In 2021, the US banned Kolomoyskyi and his family from entering the country, accusing him of corruption and being a threat to the Ukrainian public's faith in democratic institutions. In July 2022, following an apparent falling out, Zelenskyy stripped Kolomoyskyi of his Ukrainian citizenship, citing the ongoing US criminal investigation. In November 2022, many of Kolomoyski's assets, particularly ones that were strategic to the Ukrainian state in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including his ownership of Ukraine's largest gasoline companies, were nationalized by the Ukrainian government.

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Romanization of Ukrainian

Romanization of Ukrainian

The romanization of Ukrainian, or Latinization of Ukrainian, is the representation of the Ukrainian language in Latin letters. Ukrainian is natively written in its own Ukrainian alphabet, which is based on the Cyrillic script. Romanization may be employed to represent Ukrainian text or pronunciation for non-Ukrainian readers, on computer systems that cannot reproduce Cyrillic characters, or for typists who are not familiar with the Ukrainian keyboard layout. Methods of romanization include transliteration and transcription.

Hebrew language

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family. It was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a spoken language by their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans, before dying out after 200 CE. However, it was largely preserved as a liturgical language, featuring prominently in Judaism and Samaritanism. Having ceased to be a dead language in the 19th century, today's Hebrew serves as the only successful large-scale example of linguistic revival. It is the only non-extinct Canaanite language, and is also one of only two Northwest Semitic languages still spoken, with the other being Aramaic.

Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately 600,000 square kilometres (230,000 sq mi). Prior to the ongoing Russian invasion, it was the eighth-most populous country in Europe, with a population of around 41 million people. On 1 January 2023, the United Nations estimated the Ukrainian population to be 34.1 million, with record low birth rates. It is also bordered by Belarus to the north; by Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; and by Romania and Moldova to the southwest; with a coastline along the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov to the south and southeast. Kyiv is the nation's capital and largest city. Ukraine's state language is Ukrainian; Russian is also widely spoken, especially in the east and south.

Israel

Israel

Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in Western Asia. Situated in the Southern Levant, it is bordered by Lebanon to the north, by Syria to the northeast, by Jordan to the east, by the Red Sea to the south, by Egypt to the southwest, by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, and by the Palestinian territories — the West Bank along the east and the Gaza Strip along the southwest. Tel Aviv is the economic and technological center of the country, while its seat of government is in its proclaimed capital of Jerusalem, although Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem is unrecognized internationally.

Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus, officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. It is geographically in Western Asia, but its cultural ties and geopolitics are overwhelmingly Southeastern European. Cyprus is the third-largest and third-most populous island in the Mediterranean. It is located north of Egypt, east of Greece, south of Turkey, and west of Lebanon and Syria. Its capital and largest city is Nicosia. The northeast portion of the island is de facto governed by the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

Business oligarch

Business oligarch

A business oligarch is generally a business magnate who controls sufficient resources to influence national politics. A business leader can be considered an oligarch if the following conditions are satisfied:uses monopolistic tactics to dominate an industry; possesses sufficient political power to promote their own interests; controls multiple businesses, which intensively coordinate their activities.

Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic

Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic

The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, or UkSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. In the anthem of the Ukrainian SSR, it was referred to simply as Ukraine. Under the Soviet one-party model, the Ukrainian SSR was governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union through its republican branch, the Communist Party of Ukraine.

PrivatBank

PrivatBank

PrivatBank is the largest Ukrainian bank in terms of assets and the leader of Ukrainian retail banking market. It was registered on 19 March 1992. PrivatBank was one of the first to introduce modern digital banking and unique technological solutions in Ukraine, allowing customers to use most services remotely by means of Privat24.

Privat Group

Privat Group

The Privat Group, or PrivatBank Group is a global business group, based in Ukraine. Privat Group controls thousands of companies of virtually every industry in Ukraine, the European Union, Georgia, Ghana, Russia, the United States and other countries. Steel, oil & gas, chemical and energy are sectors of the group's prime influence and expertise. None of the group's capital is publicly traded on any stock exchange.

Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, also referred to as Dnipropetrovshchyna, is an oblast (province) of southeastern Ukraine, the most important industrial region of the country. It was created on February 27, 1932. Dnipropetrovsk Oblast has a population of about 3,096,485, approximately 80% of whom live centering on administrative centers: Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Kamianske, Nikopol and Pavlohrad. The Dnieper River runs through the oblast.

Petro Poroshenko

Petro Poroshenko

Petro Oleksiyovych Poroshenko is a Ukrainian businessman and politician who served as the fifth president of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019. Poroshenko served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2009 to 2010, and as the Minister of Trade and Economic Development in 2012. From 2007 until 2012, he headed the Council of Ukraine's National Bank. He was elected president on 25 May 2014, receiving 54.7% of the votes cast in the first round, thus winning outright and avoiding a run-off. During his presidency, Poroshenko led the country through the first phase of the war in Donbas, pushing the Russian separatist forces into the Donbas Region. He began the process of integration with the European Union by signing the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement.

2019 Ukrainian presidential election

2019 Ukrainian presidential election

The 2019 Ukrainian presidential election was held on 31 March and 21 April in a two-round system.

Early life and education

Kolomoyskyi was born into a Jewish family in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union. Both parents had graduated in engineering. His mother worked at the university and father in a metallurgical plant. Already in his childhood he was considered to be very determined, diligent and serious, was enthusiastic about sports, and liked to play chess. Professionally, he followed the example of his parents. After graduating from the Gymnasium 21 in Dnipro with the Komsomol badge "For outstanding school performance", in 1980 he took up graduate studies in engineering at the Leonid Brezhnev Dnipropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute (now the National Metallurgical Academy of Ukraine), graduating in 1985.[7]

As a Komsomol activist, Kolomoyskyi was involved in the so-called "disco movement"—an attempt by the authorities to promote an ideological safe alternative to the growing, underground, rebroadcast and performance of "Anglo-American" rock music including, in the 80s, heavy metal and punk.[7][8] Kolomoyskyi used his role in organising approved dance venues and concerts to begin his trading career, as did others in his position, several of whom would go on to play prominent roles in post-Soviet national politics, among them Yulia Tymoshenko, Victor Pinchuk, Serhiy Tihipko, and Oleksandr Turchynov.[9]

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Dnipro

Dnipro

Dnipro, formerly Dnipropetrovsk (1926–2016), is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, 391 km (243 mi) southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper River, after which its Ukrainian language name is derived. Dnipro is the administrative centre of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. It hosts the administration of Dnipro urban hromada. The population of Dnipro is 968,502

Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic

Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic

The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, or UkSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. In the anthem of the Ukrainian SSR, it was referred to simply as Ukraine. Under the Soviet one-party model, the Ukrainian SSR was governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union through its republican branch, the Communist Party of Ukraine.

Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country spanning most of northern Eurasia that existed from 30 December 1922 to 26 December 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national republics; in practice, both its government and its economy were highly centralized until its final years. It was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of Moscow serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic: the Russian SFSR. Other major cities included Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Tashkent, Alma-Ata, and Novosibirsk. It was the largest country in the world, covering over 22,402,200 square kilometres (8,649,500 sq mi) and spanning eleven time zones.

Komsomol

Komsomol

The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, usually known as Komsomol, a syllabic abbreviation of the Russian Коммунистический Союз Молодёжи, was a political youth organization in the Soviet Union. It is sometimes described as the youth division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), although it was officially independent and referred to as "the helper and the reserve of the CPSU".

National Metallurgical Academy of Ukraine

National Metallurgical Academy of Ukraine

National Metallurgical Academy of Ukraine is a university in Dnipro dedicated to the study of metallurgy.

Yulia Tymoshenko

Yulia Tymoshenko

Yulia Volodymyrivna Tymoshenko is a Ukrainian politician, people's Deputy of Ukraine, Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine for the fuel and energy complex (1999–2001), Prime Minister of Ukraine from February to September 2005 and from December 2007 to March 2010. She was the first and so far the only woman to serve as prime minister of Ukraine. She has the degree of Candidate of Economic Sciences.

Victor Pinchuk

Victor Pinchuk

Victor Mykhailovych Pinchuk is a Ukrainian businessman and oligarch. As of January 2016, Forbes ranked him as 1,250th on the list of wealthiest people in the world, with a fortune of US$1.44 billion.

Serhiy Tihipko

Serhiy Tihipko

Serhiy Leonidovych Tihipko is a Ukrainian politician and finance specialist who was Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine. Tihipko was Minister of Economics in 2000 and subsequently served as Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine from 2002 to 2004. He ran unsuccessfully for President of Ukraine in the 2010 presidential election and participated in the 2014 presidential election, in which he placed fifth with 5.23 percent of the vote. Tihipko is also former Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Social Policy.

Oleksandr Turchynov

Oleksandr Turchynov

Oleksandr Valentynovych Turchynov is a Ukrainian politician, screenwriter, Baptist minister and economist. He is the former Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine.

Name

The transliteration of Ihor Kolomoyskyi's name into English has numerous variants including Igor, or Ihor for his first name, and Kolomoyskyi, Kolomoysky, Kolomoisky, Kolomoiskiy, or Kolomoyskiy for his surname.

Kolomoyskyi uses the nickname Benya (Russian: Беня),[10] an invocation of the infamous Ukrainian (and Jewish) criminal reprobate Benya Krik, popularly fictionalized in Isaac Babel's Odessa Stories. Occasionally, Kolomoyskyi is called Bonifatsiy (the eponymous star of the popular Soviet cartoon "Каникулы Бонифация" (Bonifacy's holidays by Soyuzmultfilm (1965)).

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Russian language

Russian language

Russian is an East Slavic language mainly spoken in Russia. It is the native language of the Russians and belongs to the Indo-European language family. It is one of four living East Slavic languages, and is also a part of the larger Balto-Slavic languages. Besides Russia itself, Russian is an official language in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, and is used widely as a lingua franca throughout Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and to some extent in the Baltic states. It was the de facto language of the former Soviet Union, and continues to be used in public life with varying proficiency in all of the post-Soviet states.

Isaac Babel

Isaac Babel

Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel was a Russian writer, journalist, playwright, and literary translator. He is best known as the author of Red Cavalry and Odessa Stories, and has been acclaimed as "the greatest prose writer of Russian Jewry." Babel was arrested by the NKVD on 15 May 1939 on fabricated charges of terrorism and espionage, and executed on 27 January 1940.

Odessa Stories

Odessa Stories

Odessa Stories, also known as Tales of Odessa, is a collection of four short stories by Isaac Babel, set in Odessa in the last days of the Russian empire and the Russian Revolution. Published individually in Soviet magazines between 1921 and 1924 and collected into a book in 1931, they deal primarily with a group of Jewish thugs that live in Moldavanka, a ghetto of Odessa. Their leader is Benya Krik, known as the King, and loosely based on the historical figure Mishka Yaponchik.

Soyuzmultfilm

Soyuzmultfilm

Soyuzmultfilm is a Russian animation studio based in Moscow. Launched in June 10, 1936, the studio has produced more than 1,500 cartoons. Soyuzmultfilm specializes in the creation of animated TV series, feature films and short films. The studio has made animated films in a wide variety of genres and art techniques, including stop motion, hand-drawn, 2D and 3D techniques.

Business career

In 1990, with two other graduates from Dnipropetrovsk universities, Gennadiy Bogolyubov and Oleksiy Martynov, Kolomoyskyi created a joint enterprise marketing office equipment bought in Moscow. After the collapse of the USSR, the partners, joined by the son of a major Soviet entrepreneur, Leonid Miloslavsky, began to import foreign goods - from sneakers and sportswear to telephones.[11] To pay for the imports, Kolomoyskyi arranged the export of steel products. Soon they realized the greater profits to be made in internationally trading the locally sourced ores and metal. Among other operations, their Privat group supplied fuel to the mining company Pokrovsky (Ordzhonikidzevsky) GOK, receiving in return manganese ore for export.[11][12]

In March 1992, the four companies of the Privat Group established Privatbank CJSC.[13] Unlike state-owned banks, Privat willingly served private entrepreneurs and in 1995 participated aggressively in the voucher scheme for the privatization of state assets.[11] With the blessing of Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma (also from Dnipro, and whose successful presidential campaign in 1994 Kolomoyskyi and his partners later funded),[14] PrivatBank was also the only Ukrainian lender to receive permission from the National Bank of Ukraine to open overseas branches. One branch in Latvia, established in 1992, was later implicated in the 2014 Moldovan bank fraud scandal. The operations of a second, opened in the late 1990s in Cyprus, helped precipitate the nationalization of PrivatBank in 2016.[15][16][17][18][19]

Between 1999 and 2003, Kolomoyskyi gained control of Ukrnafta, Kalinin Coke and Chemical Plant, Ozerka market in Dnipropetrovsk, Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant, and other companies.[7] Through Privat Group, whose board he chaired from 1997,[20] Kolomoyskyi controlled, at various points in the early 2000s, three Ukrainian airlines: Aerosvit Airlines,[21] Dniproavia,[22] Donbassaero.[23] All went bankrupt. Through the asset management company Mansvell Enterprises Limited, he controlled a further three Scandinavian airlines, Skyways Express, City Airline, and Cimber Sterling each of which again, within a few years, filed for bankruptcy and ceased operations.[24]

As of 2008, other fields of activity in Ukraine as well as in Russia and Romania included: ferroalloys, finance, oil products, and mass media,[25][26]

Kolomoyskyi's media assets were initially controlled by Glavred media holding, which owns Information Agency UNIAN, the weekly magazine Profile, newspapers Novaya Gazeta and Gazeta po-Kievsky.[27] In early September 2007, Ronald Lauder announced that Kolomoyskyi had acquired a 3% stake, and is on the board of directors, of Central European Media Enterprises.[28] In April 2010, through his wholly-owned Harley Trading Limited company, for around $300 million Kolomoyskyi secured control of one of Ukraine's largest media conglomerates, 1+1 Media Group which operates eight Ukrainian TV channels.[29][30]

In November 2019, The New York Times reported that Kolomoyskyi was behind plans to build a controversial ski resort in Svydovets, Ukraine. In the article, a professor at a local university was quoted describing Kolomoyskyi as "a leech who sucks our blood here and puts it in Switzerland."[31]

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Gennadiy Bogolyubov

Gennadiy Bogolyubov

Gennadiy Bogolyubov is a Ukrainian billionaire businessman based in the United Kingdom. He controls Privat Group, along with Ihor Kolomoyskyi and Oleksiy Martynov.

Dissolution of the Soviet Union

Dissolution of the Soviet Union

The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the process of internal disintegration within the Soviet Union (USSR) which resulted in the end of the country's and its federal government's existence as a sovereign state, thereby resulting in its constituent republics gaining full independence on 26 December 1991. It brought an end to General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's effort to reform the Soviet political and economic system in an attempt to stop a period of political stalemate and economic backslide. The Soviet Union had experienced internal stagnation and ethnic separatism. Although highly centralized until its final years, the country was made up of 15 top-level republics that served as homelands for different ethnicities. By late 1991, amid a catastrophic political crisis, with several republics already departing the Union and the waning of centralized power, the leaders of three of its founding members declared that the Soviet Union no longer existed. Eight more republics joined their declaration shortly thereafter. Gorbachev resigned in December 1991 and what was left of the Soviet parliament voted to end itself.

Leonid Kuchma

Leonid Kuchma

Leonid Danylovych Kuchma is a Ukrainian politician who was the second president of Ukraine from 19 July 1994 to 23 January 2005. Kuchma's presidency saw numerous corruption scandals and the lessening of media freedoms.

National Bank of Ukraine

National Bank of Ukraine

National Bank of Ukraine or NBU is the central bank of Ukraine – a government body responsible for unified state policy in the field of country's monetary circulation, including strengthening of the national currency unit, hryvnia. The National Bank of Ukraine employs over 12,000 people, making it one of the leading banks. It regulates and supervises activities, functions and legal status of government and commercial banks based on principles of the Constitution of Ukraine and the law of Ukraine.

Latvia

Latvia

Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the Baltic states; and is bordered by Estonia to the north, Lithuania to the south, Russia to the east, Belarus to the southeast, and shares a maritime border with Sweden to the west. Latvia covers an area of 64,589 km2 (24,938 sq mi), with a population of 1.9 million. The country has a temperate seasonal climate. Its capital and largest city is Riga. Latvians belong to the ethno-linguistic group of the Balts and speak Latvian, one of the only two surviving Baltic languages. Russians are the most prominent minority in the country, at almost a quarter of the population.

2014 Moldovan bank fraud scandal

2014 Moldovan bank fraud scandal

In 2014, $1 billion disappeared from three Moldovan banks: Banca de Economii, Unibank and Banca Socială. This bank fraud in Moldova was a coordinated effort involving all three banks working together to extract as much loan finance as possible from the banks without any obvious business rationale. Ilan Shor, a Moldovan businessman, "masterminded" the scam. Shor was chairman of the board at Banca de Economii up to November 28, 2014.

Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus, officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. It is geographically in Western Asia, but its cultural ties and geopolitics are overwhelmingly Southeastern European. Cyprus is the third-largest and third-most populous island in the Mediterranean. It is located north of Egypt, east of Greece, south of Turkey, and west of Lebanon and Syria. Its capital and largest city is Nicosia. The northeast portion of the island is de facto governed by the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

Nationalization of PrivatBank

Nationalization of PrivatBank

The nationalization of PrivatBank by the government of Ukraine, taking 100% ownership, occurred on 18 December 2016.

Dniproavia

Dniproavia

Dniproavia was an airline headquartered at Dnipro International Airport in Dnipro, Ukraine, which operated scheduled and chartered passenger flights.

Donbassaero

Donbassaero

Donbassaero was an airline with its head office on the property of Donetsk International Airport in Donetsk, Ukraine. It operated domestic and international scheduled services. Its main bases were Donetsk International Airport and Boryspil International Airport in Kyiv. The main shareholder of the company was PrivatBank, controlled by Ihor Kolomoyskyi.

City Airline

City Airline

City Airline AB was a regional airline based in the Air Cargo Building on the grounds of Göteborg Landvetter Airport in Landvetter, Härryda Municipality, Sweden. It was privately owned and operated a medium-sized European network from its main base at Landvetter. The airline was wholly owned by Investment AB Janus of Gothenburg and employed 110 staff. On 29 November 2011 the City Airline name was dropped after being acquired by Skyways, and all flights were then operated under the Skyways brand. In May 2012 Skyways and City Airline filed for bankruptcy.

Cimber Sterling

Cimber Sterling

Cimber Sterling A/S, also known as Cimber Air and styled as Cimber Sterling, was a Danish airline based in Sønderborg, Sønderborg Municipality, Denmark, operating scheduled domestic and international services in co-operation with Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) and Lufthansa. Its main bases were Copenhagen Airport and Billund Airport, with a smaller base at Aalborg Airport. The airline filed for bankruptcy on 3 May 2012.

Wealth

As of 2007, Kolomoyskyi was a billionaire listed by Forbes as the 799th-richest man in the world with 3.8 billion dollars.[32] In 2010 Kyiv Post estimated his wealth at $6.243 billion.[33] In March 2012 Forbes placed him 377th with $3 billion.[34] In 2010 Kyiv Post listed Kolomoyskyi as the second richest person in Ukraine;[33] in 2012 Forbes rated him the third richest person in Ukraine (after Rinat Akhmetov and/or Viktor Pinchuk).[34][35]

In March 2015, after the sharp decline in the value of the Ukrainian hryvnia, The Economist listed his net worth as $1.36 billion.[30][33] In 2019, the Ukrainian magazine Focus placed Kolomoyskyi third on a list of the 100 most influential Ukrainians.[36]

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Forbes

Forbes

Forbes is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. Forbes also reports on related subjects such as technology, communications, science, politics, and law. It is based in Jersey City, New Jersey. Competitors in the national business magazine category include Fortune and Bloomberg Businessweek. Forbes has an international edition in Asia as well as editions produced under license in 27 countries and regions worldwide.

Kyiv Post

Kyiv Post

The Kyiv Post is the oldest English-language newspaper in Ukraine, founded in October 1995 by Jed Sunden.

Rinat Akhmetov

Rinat Akhmetov

Rinat Leonidovych Akhmetov is a Ukrainian billionaire and businessman. He is the founder and president of System Capital Management (SCM), and is the wealthiest man in Ukraine. As of January 2023, he was listed as the 639th richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of US$5.7 billion.

Ukrainian hryvnia

Ukrainian hryvnia

The hryvnia or hryvnya has been the national currency of Ukraine since 2 September 1996. The hryvnia is divided into 100 kopiyok. It is named after a measure of weight used in medieval Kievan Rus'.

The Economist

The Economist

The Economist is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by the Economist Group, with its core editorial offices in the United States, as well as across major cities in continental Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. In 2019, its average global print circulation was over 909,476; this, combined with its digital presence, runs to over 1.6 million. Across its social media platforms, it reaches an audience of 35 million, as of 2016. The newspaper has a prominent focus on data journalism and interpretive analysis over original reporting, to both criticism and acclaim.

Focus (Ukrainian magazine)

Focus (Ukrainian magazine)

Focus is a Ukrainian national weekly news magazine, published in Kyiv. The magazine's motto: "Every detail has a meaning".

Allegations of corruption and legal battles

Nationalisation of PrivatBank

PrivatBank head office in Dnipro, 2010
PrivatBank head office in Dnipro, 2010

Beginning in 2010, rumors circulated that Kolomoyskyi's assets were coming under pressure from the Ukrainian authorities and that he was spending increasingly more time in Switzerland.[33]

In September 2013, Kolomoyskyi was criticized by Mr Justice Mann in a court case in London involving an attempted hostile takeover in October 2010 of Alexander Zhukov's JKX Oil and Gas Company,[a][b] The judge noted that Kolomoyskyi had "a reputation of having sought to take control of a company at gunpoint in Ukraine" and that a finance director considered she had "strong grounds for doubting the honesty of Mr Kolomoyskyi".[41]

In 2015 Victor Pinchuk brought a $2 billion civil action against Kolomoyskyi and Gennadiy Bogolyubov in the High Court of Justice in London over the 2004 purchase of a Ukrainian mining company. Allegations made include murder and bribery.[42][43] In January 2016 an undisclosed out of court settlement was reached just before the trial was due to start.[44]

From as of April 1, 2016, "1+1" media group ceased all TV broadcasts. According to Ruslan Bortnik, director of the Ukrainian Institute of Analysis and Policy Management, unable to find external sponsors and faced with the determination of the Ukrainian government to secure own television presence, the TV project was proving unprofitable for Kolomoyskyi. Other projects, like Kolomoyskyi Football Club Dnipro where the players were not receiving their pay, were also in difficulty.[45] Through Privat Group, Kolomoyskyi also had an interest in Budivelnyk Kyiv.[46] In 2019, after being relegated FC Dnipro was dissolved.[47]

In 2016, Kolomoyskyi and his business partner Gennadiy Bogolyubov were accused of defrauding Ukraine's largest bank PrivatBank of billions of dollars through large unsecured loans to shareholders. Between mid-2015 and mid-2016, the bank had handed out over US$1 billion in loans to firms owned by seven top managers and two subordinates of Kolomoyskyi.[15][48] The Bank of Italy meanwhile shut down the Italian branch of Latvian lender AS PrivatBank after finding breaches of money-laundering regulations.[49] Valeria Hontareva, the former chairwoman of Ukraine's central bank, characterised Kolomoyskyi and Boholiubov operation PrivatBank as one of the biggest financial scandals of the 21st century. “Large-scale coordinated fraudulent actions of the bank shareholders and management caused a loss to the state of at least $5.5 billion,” Hontareva said in March 2018. “This is 33 percent of the population’s deposits … [and] 40 percent of our country’s monetary base". A key mechanism appears to have been the PrivatBank subsidiary in Cyprus which the Ukrainian regulator treated as if it was just another of the bank's domestic branches.[50]

In December 2016, declaring that Kolomoyskyi‘s bank was severely under capitalized and a threat to the country's financial system, the Ukrainian government nationalized the lender,[48] then the largest in Ukraine.[15][51][52] A $5.6 billion bailout was financed with IMF funds.[15][48] In 2018, the now nationalized PrivatBank brought a lawsuit against Kolomoyskyi and Bogolyubov in the High Court in London and secured a worldwide freeze on their assets. The High Court ruled that it had no jurisdiction,[53] but in 2019 the judgement was overturned on appeal, with the UK Supreme Court finding that the $3 billion claim against the former owners of the bank can be heard in a London court.[54]

In April 2019, a Ukrainian court ruled that the nationalization of PrivatBank was illegal.[55][56] Ukraine's central bank said it would not be possible to reverse the nationalisation and that it would appeal the decision.[55] Kolomoyskyi stated that he has no interest in taking back control of the bank but sought $2bn in compensation for losses he insists were incurred during the nationalisation.[57] On February 14, 2017, PrivatBank was liquidated.[16][58][59]

In July 2022, the Supreme Court of Ukraine reaffirmed the decision of the National Bank of Ukraine to nationalise PrivatBank and ruled the decision valid and legal.

US investigations and blacklisting

In April 2019 it was reported the FBI was investigating Kolomoyskyi over financial crimes involving Gennadiy Bogolyubov, the Krivyi Rih businessman Vadim Shulman and Mordechai "Motti" Korf of Florida in relation to Kolomoyskyi steel holdings in West Virginia and northern Ohio in the United States and his mining interests in Ghana and Australia.[60][61][62] Legal filings from American prosecutors in 2019 detailed how Kolomoyskyi used his control of Ukraine's largest retail bank, PrivatBank, to loot staggering sums from Ukrainian depositors, and via a series of shell companies and offshore accounts whisked the money out of the country and into the U.S.[58][63]

In August 2020, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) in the Southern District of Florida (Miami) alleged that Kolomoyskyi, Bogolyubov, Mordechai Korf, and Uriel Lader collectively obtained numerous properties as part of a $5.5 billion Ponzi scheme as "an international conspiracy to launder money embezzled and fraudulently obtained from PrivatBank," which was nationalized in 2016 to prevent a collapse of Ukraine's equivalent to the United States' FDIC, and using PrivatBank's "Cyprus branch... as a washing machine for the stolen loan funds."[15][16][58][64][65]

In April 2021 Kolomoyskyi and his wife and children were banned from entering the US,[66] The United States Department of State accused him of corruptly using his time as Governor of Dnipropetrovsk to personally enrich himself. He was "involved in corrupt acts that undermined rule of law and the Ukrainian public's faith in their government's democratic institutions and public processes, including using his political influence and official power for his personal benefit."[67] In his statement Secretary of State Antony Blinken said:

While this designation is based on acts during his time in office, I also want to express concern about Kolomoyskyy’s current and ongoing efforts to undermine Ukraine’s democratic processes and institutions, which pose a serious threat to its future.[68]

In January 2022, the DOJ announced that it had filed a civil forfeiture complaint against Kolomoyskyi in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida alleging that "more than $6 million in proceeds from the sale of commercial real estate in Dallas, Texas . . . are subject to forfeiture based on violations of federal money laundering statutes".[69] This was the fourth such action filed by the DOJ in connection with the same alleged criminal activity: the laundering of funds illegally obtained from PrivatBank through multimillion-dollar U.S. property investments.[70]

Discover more about Allegations of corruption and legal battles related topics

PrivatBank

PrivatBank

PrivatBank is the largest Ukrainian bank in terms of assets and the leader of Ukrainian retail banking market. It was registered on 19 March 1992. PrivatBank was one of the first to introduce modern digital banking and unique technological solutions in Ukraine, allowing customers to use most services remotely by means of Privat24.

Dnipro

Dnipro

Dnipro, formerly Dnipropetrovsk (1926–2016), is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, 391 km (243 mi) southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper River, after which its Ukrainian language name is derived. Dnipro is the administrative centre of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. It hosts the administration of Dnipro urban hromada. The population of Dnipro is 968,502

Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located at the confluence of Western, Central and Southern Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east.

Gennadiy Bogolyubov

Gennadiy Bogolyubov

Gennadiy Bogolyubov is a Ukrainian billionaire businessman based in the United Kingdom. He controls Privat Group, along with Ihor Kolomoyskyi and Oleksiy Martynov.

High Court of Justice

High Court of Justice

The High Court of Justice in London, known properly as His Majesty's High Court of Justice in England, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, are the Senior Courts of England and Wales. Its name is abbreviated as EWHC for legal citation purposes.

FC Dnipro

FC Dnipro

Football Club Dnipro was a Ukrainian football club based in Dnipro. The club was owned by the Privat Group that also owns BC Dnipro and Budivelnyk Kyiv.

Privat Group

Privat Group

The Privat Group, or PrivatBank Group is a global business group, based in Ukraine. Privat Group controls thousands of companies of virtually every industry in Ukraine, the European Union, Georgia, Ghana, Russia, the United States and other countries. Steel, oil & gas, chemical and energy are sectors of the group's prime influence and expertise. None of the group's capital is publicly traded on any stock exchange.

HC Budivelnyk

HC Budivelnyk

HC Budivelnyk was a potential professional ice hockey team based in Kyiv, Ukraine. It planned to join the Kontinental Hockey League for the 2010-11 season. However, on June 24, 2010, the team's management announced the postponement of the team's debut in the KHL. If it had joined the KHL, it would have been the first Ukrainian hockey team to compete at the elite level of European hockey since 1996, when the Russian Superleague was formed. The team was owned and operated by the same group as the Kyiv-based basketball club, BC Budivelnyk.

Bank of Italy

Bank of Italy

The Bank of Italy is the central bank of Italy and part of the European System of Central Banks. It is located in Palazzo Koch, via Nazionale, Rome. The bank's current governor is Ignazio Visco, who took the office on 1 November 2011.

Nationalization of PrivatBank

Nationalization of PrivatBank

The nationalization of PrivatBank by the government of Ukraine, taking 100% ownership, occurred on 18 December 2016.

National Bank of Ukraine

National Bank of Ukraine

National Bank of Ukraine or NBU is the central bank of Ukraine – a government body responsible for unified state policy in the field of country's monetary circulation, including strengthening of the national currency unit, hryvnia. The National Bank of Ukraine employs over 12,000 people, making it one of the leading banks. It regulates and supervises activities, functions and legal status of government and commercial banks based on principles of the Constitution of Ukraine and the law of Ukraine.

Ohio

Ohio

Ohio, officially the State of Ohio is a state in the Midwestern United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area. With a population of nearly 11.8 million, Ohio is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated state. Its capital and largest city is Columbus, with the Columbus metro area, Greater Cincinnati, and Greater Cleveland being the largest metropolitan areas. Ohio is bordered by Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the west, and Michigan to the northwest. Ohio is nicknamed the "Buckeye State" after its Ohio buckeye trees, and Ohioans are also known as "Buckeyes". Its state flag is the only non-rectangular flag of all the U.S. states.

Activities in the Jewish community

Kolomoyskyi has been a prominent figure in Ukraine's organised Jewish community.[71] In 2008, he was elected the President of “the United Jewish community of Ukraine” in Kyiv.[72] He became a major funder in Ukraine of the Chabad movement, which has Ukrainian roots.[73][74]

In 2012, with Gennady Bogolubov and Victor Pinchuk, he financed construction of what purports to be the largest multifunctional Jewish Community Center in Europe,[75] the Menorah Centre, in downtown Dnipro. Comprising seven marble[76] towers (of which the highest is 20 stories) arranged in the shape of a menorah,[77] it houses a synagogue, two hotels, kosher restaurant and grocery store and Jewish Memory and Holocaust Museum.[78][79]

In 2010 in Berlin, after promising the outgoing president he would donate $14 million,[80] Kolomoyskyi was appointed as the president of the European Council of Jewish Communities (ECJC).[81] Some western European ECJC board members described his elevation as a "putsch"[82][81] and a "Soviet-style takeover".[83] After several resigned in protest, Kolomoyskyi quit the ECJC and, together with fellow Ukrainian oligarch Vadim Rabinovich, founded the European Jewish Union in April 2011.[80]

Launched by Kolomoyskyi and Rabinovich at Disneyland Paris,[84] the EJU subsequently styled itself the European Jewish Parliament. Modelled on the Israeli Knesset with 120 members,[85][86] its declared aim is to represent the concerns of the Jewish community to the European Union.[87] The Brussels-based initiative, with which Kolymoyski no longer appears to be associated,[88] has been opposed by much of the established Jewish community leadership.[89]

Discover more about Activities in the Jewish community related topics

Menorah center, Dnipro

Menorah center, Dnipro

The Menorah center is a cultural and business center of the Jewish community in Dnipro in Eastern Ukraine. Some sources declare it to be the biggest multifunctional Jewish community center in Europe or in the world. The heart of the complex is the historic Golden Rose central synagogue, built in the 19th century.

History of the Jews in Ukraine

History of the Jews in Ukraine

The history of the Jews in Ukraine dates back over a thousand years; Jewish communities have existed in the modern territory of Ukraine from the time of the Kievan Rus'. Important Jewish religious and cultural movements, from Hasidism to Zionism, arose there. According to the World Jewish Congress, the Jewish community in Ukraine constitutes Europe's third-largest and the world's fifth-largest.

Chabad

Chabad

Chabad, also known as Lubavitch, Habad and Chabad-Lubavitch, is an Orthodox Jewish Hasidic dynasty. Chabad is one of the world's best-known Hasidic movements, particularly for its outreach activities. It is one of the largest Hasidic groups and Jewish religious organizations in the world. Unlike most Haredi groups, which are self-segregating, Chabad operates mainly in the wider world and caters to secularized Jews.

Gennadiy Bogolyubov

Gennadiy Bogolyubov

Gennadiy Bogolyubov is a Ukrainian billionaire businessman based in the United Kingdom. He controls Privat Group, along with Ihor Kolomoyskyi and Oleksiy Martynov.

Victor Pinchuk

Victor Pinchuk

Victor Mykhailovych Pinchuk is a Ukrainian businessman and oligarch. As of January 2016, Forbes ranked him as 1,250th on the list of wealthiest people in the world, with a fortune of US$1.44 billion.

Jewish Community Center

Jewish Community Center

A Jewish Community Center or a Jewish Community Centre (JCC) is a general recreational, social, and fraternal organization serving the Jewish community in a number of cities. JCCs promote Jewish culture and heritage through holiday celebrations, Israel-related programming, and other Jewish education. However, they are open to everyone in the community.

Temple menorah

Temple menorah

The menorah is a seven-branched candelabrum that is described in the Hebrew Bible and in later ancient sources as having been used in the Tabernacle and in the Temple in Jerusalem. Since ancient times, it has represented the Jewish people and Judaism in both the Land of Israel and the Diaspora, while in modern times it is represented on Israel's national emblem. The symbol has also been found in archaeological artifacts from ancient Samaritan, Christian and Islamic communities.

The Holocaust

The Holocaust

The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were carried out in pogroms and mass shootings; by a policy of extermination through labor in concentration camps; and in gas chambers and gas vans in German extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bełżec, Chełmno, Majdanek, Sobibór, and Treblinka in occupied Poland.

Vadim Rabinovich

Vadim Rabinovich

Vadim Zinovyevich Rabinovich is an Israeli and formerly Ukrainian oligarch and Jewish community leader. He is a former leader of the banned Opposition Platform — For Life party, as well as an unsuccessful candidate in the 2014 Ukrainian presidential election and a People's Deputy of Ukraine from the 8th and 9th Verkhovna Rada convocations, serving as a member of the Opposition Bloc from 2014 to 2019 and as a member of Opposition Platform — For Life from 2019 until he was removed from office by the party for his support of Russia during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Disneyland Paris

Disneyland Paris

Disneyland Paris is an entertainment resort in Chessy, France, 32 km (20 mi) east of Paris. It encompasses two theme parks, resort hotels, Disney Nature Resorts, a shopping, dining and entertainment complex, and a golf course. Disneyland Park is the original theme park of the complex, opening in 1992. A second theme park, Walt Disney Studios Park, opened in 2002. Disneyland Paris celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2022; by then 320 million people had visited, making it the most visited theme park in Europe. It is the second Disney park outside the United States, following the opening of the Tokyo Disney Resort in 1983, and the largest. Disneyland Paris is also the only Disney resort outside of the United States to be completely owned by The Walt Disney Company. It includes 7 hotels: Santa Fe, Hotel Cheyenne, Sequoia Lodge, Newport Bay Club, Hotel New York - the Art of Marvel, The Disneyland Hotel, and Davy Crockett Ranch.

Knesset

Knesset

The Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel. As the supreme state body, the Knesset is sovereign and thus has complete control of the entirety of the Israeli government.

European Union

European Union

The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of 27 member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of 4,233,255.3 km2 (1,634,469.0 sq mi) and an estimated total population of nearly 447 million. The EU has often been described as a sui generis political entity combining the characteristics of both a federation and a confederation.

Political engagement in Ukraine

Kolomoyskyi opposed the presidential ambitions and government of Viktor Yanukovych and his broadly pro-Russian Party of Regions. He had been an ally of Yanukovych's predecessor as president, Victor Yushchenko (2005-2010) the former central bank governor, helping to finance Yushchenko's Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc.[25] He also supported Yulia Tymoshenko and her bloc of political parties called Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko. In the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election Kolomoyskyi was seen by its critics as standing behind Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR) of Vitali Klitschko,[90] although the party denied he was a sponsor.[91]

Governor of Dnipropetrovsk

Confrontation with Putin

After the events of Euromaidan forced the resignation of Yanukovych in February 2014, acting President Oleksandr Turchynov appointed Kolomoyskyi Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.[92] Kolomoyskyi responded to the then-beginning 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine by saying, "I don't understand how Ukrainians and Russians can fight," before blaming Yanukovych and President of Russia Vladimir Putin for the unrest, referring to the latter as a "schizophrenic of short stature,"[c] and accused him of having a "messianic drive" to recreate the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union, which he said would plunge the world into catastrophe.[94]

Two days later, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was to respond to Yanukovych's ouster by annexing Crimea and Sevastopol and initiating a separatist war in the Donbas, described Kolomoyskyi as a "unique crook”.[95] According to Putin, Kolomoyskyi "even managed to cheat our Roman Abramovich two or three years ago. Scammed him, as our intellectuals like to say. They signed some deal, Abramovich transferred several billion dollars, while this guy never delivered and pocketed the money. When I asked him [Abramovich]: 'Why did you do it?' he said: 'I never thought this was possible'".[96]

Kolomoyskyi initially dismissed suggestions of separatism in Dnipropetrovsk.[97][98] However, his then-deputy, Borys Filatov argues that Kolomoyskyi, as governor, proceeded to do "a great deal to prevent the so-called Russian Spring taking over" in the region.[79] In April, Kolomoyskyi offered a bounty for the capture of Russian-backed militants and incentives for the turning in of weapons.[99][100] On 3 June 2014, Kolomoiskyi offered a $500,000 reward for the delivery of Oleg Tsaryov, a leader of the separatists, to the law enforcement agencies of Ukraine.[101] He drafted thousands of Privat Group employees as auxiliary police officers.[102] Kolomoyskyi is also believed to have spent $10 million to create the Dnipro Battalion,[103][104] and to have provided funds for the Aidar, Azov, and Donbas volunteer battalions.[105][106]

Filatov concedes that these extraordinary measures were in Kolomoyskyi’s interest, since the Russians would have seized his assets.[79] Following their 2014 annexation of Crimea, the Russian authorities nationalised Kolomoyskyi's Crimean properties, including a civil airport. According to the pro-Russian Crimean leader Sergey Aksyonov the move was "totally justified due to the fact that he [Kolomoyskyi] is one of the initiators and financiers of the special anti-terrorist operation in the Eastern Ukraine where Russian citizens are being killed".[107][108] In response, in January 2016 Kolomoyskyi filed a complaint against Russia at the Permanent Court of Arbitration.[109][110]

The Russians maintained that the intergovernmental court has no jurisdiction over the matter and refused to participate in proceedings.[111] They responded with their own charges against Kolomoyskyi, accusing him, in his support for Ukrainian resistance to Russian-backed separatists in the Dontesk and Luhansk, of "organizing the killing of civilians".[112][113] Russia asked for Kolomoyskyi to be put on Interpol's wanted list.[114] On 2 July 2014, a Russian District Court called for his arrest.[112]

As governor, Kolomoyskyi went to some lengths to maintain a reputation for ruthlessness: visitors to his office were unsettled by an enormous shark tank.[115] Once he became mayor of Dnipro in November 2015, and after his boss's ouster as governor, Filatov found Kolomoyksyi's "oligarch mentality" unchanged: "he started calling to ask me favours".[79]

Conflict with President Poroshenko

On 25 March 2015, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree dismissing Kolomoyskyi from the post of Dnipropetrovsk RSA Head, saying "Dnipropetrovsk region must remain a bastion of Ukraine in the East and protect peace". Kolomoyskyi was replaced by Valentyn Reznichenko.[30][116][117] This followed a struggle with Poroshenko for control the state-owned oil pipeline operator.[118] After Poroshenko's dismissal of Oleksandr Lazorko, who was a protégé of Kolomoyskyi, as a chief executive of UkrTransNafta, Kolomoyskyi dispatched his private security guards to seize control of the company's headquarters and expel the new government-appointed management. While Lazorko was in charge the state-owned pipelines had been delivering oil to an Kolomoyskyi-owned refinery in preference to competitors.[30][119]

In a further move against Kolomoyskyi, Poroshenko replaced Kolomoisky's long-time business partner Ihor Palytsa as governor of neighboring Odesa Oblast with the former Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili. That appointment triggered a dramatic and public war of words between Kolomoyskyi and Saakashvili. Saakashvili told journalists Kolomoyskyi was a “gangster” and “smuggler.” Kolomoyskyi told them Saakashvili was “a dog without a muzzle” and “a snotty-nosed addict.”[120]

Kolomoyskyi responded that the only difference between Poroshenko and Yanukovych is “a good education, good English and lack of a criminal record.” Everything else is the same: “It’s the same blood, the same flesh reincarnated. If Yanukovych was a lumpen dictator, Poroshenko is the educated usurper, slave to his absolute power, craven to absolute power.”[121]

Dnipro Guard

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 again highlighted the presence in Dnipro of the volunteer "Dnipro Guard" (Варти Дніпра, Varty Dnipra), first formed in 2014 with Kolomoyskyi support in response to the war in Donbas. Mayor of Dnipro, Borys Filatov has dismissed suggestions that the group is Kolomoyskyi's "private army". The Ukrainian billionaire, according to Filatov, helped with some equipment purchases, but the volunteer guard performs defence and law and order functions under the leadership of the national police.[122]

Relationship with Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Official portrait of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, 2019
Official portrait of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, 2019

As of 2019, Kolomoyskyi owned 70% of the 1+1 Media Group whose TV channel 1+1 aired Servant of the People, a comedy series in which Volodymyr Zelenskyy plays a school teacher who, defying all expectations (including his own), becomes president of Ukraine on an anti-corruption platform. In March 2018, members of Zelenskyy's production company Kvartal 95 registered a new political party called "Servant of the People."[123][124] Twelve months later, they succeeded in getting their candidate past Yulia Tymoshenko in the first round of the presidential election,[125] and on 21 April 2019 to defeat President Poroshenko in the second round with 73 per cent of the vote.[126][127]

Zelenskyy was viewed by opponents, and not least by the incumbent Poroshenko, as Kolomoyskyi's candidate.[128] Zelenskyy appointed Kolomoyskyi's personal lawyer as a key campaign advisor; travelled to Geneva and Tel Aviv to confer with the then-exiled Kolomoyskyi on multiple occasions; and benefited from the endorsement of Kolomoyskyi's media empire. Once in office, Zelenskyy appeared to remove officials deemed a threat to Kolomoyskyi's interests, among them the Prosecutor General, Ruslan Ryaboshapka and the Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), Yakiv Smolii, and Zelenskyy's first prime minister, Oleksiy Honcharuk, who tried to loosen Kolomoyskyi's control of a state-owned electricity company.[129][130]

Following the opening of U.S. criminal investigations of Kolomoyskyi and his associates, the oligarch appeared to lose influence with Zelenskyy.[131][132] In 2020, Zelenskyy sponsored a law that banned former owners from recovering nationalized assets.[133] On 1 February 2021, Oleksandr Dubinsky, a former 1+1 journalist who had actively opposed this so-called "anti-Kolomoyskyi law",[134] was expelled from Zelenskyy's Servant of the People parliamentary faction.[135] Claiming he was part of a "Russia-linked foreign influence network" associated with fellow People's Deputy Andrii Derkach, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control had placed Dubinsky on its sanction list .[136]

As had Rabinovich as co-founder of the Opposition Platform,[137] Kolomoyskyi had begun to call for a new partnership between Ukraine and Russia. When that happened, he proposed that NATO would be "soiling its pants and buying Pampers."[132] Meanwhile, striking "a more assertive tone", Zelenskyy was pushing for membership of the European Union and the NATO alliance".[138] In response to the announced of US sanctions against Kolomoyskyi in April 2021, the Office of Ukrainian President released a statement declaring “Ukraine must overcome a system dominated by oligarchs” and acknowledging that “Ukraine is grateful to each partner for its support along the way”.[139]

In October 2021, the Pandora Papers revealed that Zelenskyy and two of his Kvartal 95 associates operated a network of offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands, Cyprus, and Belize dating back to 2012.[140][141] Zelenskyy’s office sought to justify the network as having been a means of protecting him against the aggressive abuse of tax inspection powers by President Viktor Yanukovych.[142] Potentially more damaging than the appearance of tax evasion was the charge by a political ally of Poroshenko, the journalist Volodymyr Ariev, that the network had laundered some $41 million in funds from Kolomoyskyi’s Privatbank.[141][143][144]

While investigative journalists suspected that channels of communication with the president remained open,[131] Kolomoyskyi insisted that he no longer communicated with Zelenskyy.[145] He explained that his former protégé "has chosen his path". As president Zelenskyy "has his own vision, program, plans" and as he, a businessman, no longer wants anything from the state, they have nothing to talk about.[145] Kolomoyskyi had the reputation for being able to dictate the votes of deputies within Zelenskyy's parliamentary faction by phone but press reports before the Russian invasion suggested he had "disappeared", staying deliberately away from politics.[131] Despite this, in January 2022, Zelenskyy's Justice Minister Denis Malyuska proposed that Kolomoyskyi's was an "obvious" name to be entered on the register of the new anti-oligarchic law that was to come into effect in May 2022.[131]

In the wake of the Russian invasion, Zelenskyy was seen to be under increased pressure to counter Ukraine's reputation as a kleptocracy and respond to the ongoing investigation of Kolomoyskyi in the United States.[146] In both Washington and European capitals, proponents of large-scale assistance to Ukraine contended with Transparency International's European ranking of Ukraine as second only to Russia in institutional corruption.[147][148] Due to accountancy concerns, approved funds were not being released.[149]

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Viktor Yanukovych

Viktor Yanukovych

Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych is a former politician who served as the fourth president of Ukraine from 2010 until he was removed from office in the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, after months of protests against his presidency. From 2006 to 2007 he was the prime minister of Ukraine; he also served in this post from November 2002 to January 2005, with a short interruption in December 2004. He currently lives in exile in Russia, where he has lived since his removal from office in 2014.

Party of Regions

Party of Regions

The Party of Regions was a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine formed in late 1997 that then grew to be the biggest party of Ukraine between 2006 and 2014.

Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc

Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc

The Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc was an electoral alliance active in Ukraine from 2001 until 2012, associated with former President Viktor Yushchenko. Since 2005, the bloc had been dominated by a core consisting of the People's Union "Our Ukraine" party and five smaller partner parties. On 17 November 2011, the Ukrainian Parliament approved an election law that banned the participation of blocs of political parties in parliamentary elections. Since then several members of the Bloc have since merged with other parties.

2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election

2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election

Parliamentary elections were held in Ukraine on 28 October 2012. Because of various reasons, including the "impossibility of announcing election results" various by-elections have taken place since. Hence, several constituencies have been left unrepresented at various times.

Euromaidan

Euromaidan

Euromaidan, or the Maidan Uprising, was a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine, which began on 21 November 2013 with large protests in Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv. The protests were sparked by President Viktor Yanukovych's sudden decision not to sign the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement, instead choosing closer ties to Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union. Ukraine's parliament had overwhelmingly approved of finalizing the Agreement with the EU, but Russia had put pressure on Ukraine to reject it. The scope of the protests widened, with calls for the resignation of Yanukovych and the Azarov government. Protesters opposed what they saw as widespread government corruption, abuse of power, human rights violations, and the influence of oligarchs. Transparency International named Yanukovych as the top example of corruption in the world. The violent dispersal of protesters on 30 November caused further anger. The Euromaidan led to the 2014 Revolution of Dignity.

Oleksandr Turchynov

Oleksandr Turchynov

Oleksandr Valentynovych Turchynov is a Ukrainian politician, screenwriter, Baptist minister and economist. He is the former Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine.

Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, also referred to as Dnipropetrovshchyna, is an oblast (province) of southeastern Ukraine, the most important industrial region of the country. It was created on February 27, 1932. Dnipropetrovsk Oblast has a population of about 3,096,485, approximately 80% of whom live centering on administrative centers: Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Kamianske, Nikopol and Pavlohrad. The Dnieper River runs through the oblast.

2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine

2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine

From the end of February 2014, demonstrations by pro-Russian and anti-government groups took place in major cities across the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine in the aftermath of the Revolution of Dignity, which resulted in the success of Euromaidan in ousting then-President Viktor Yanukovych. The unrest, supported by Russia in the early stages of the Russo-Ukrainian War, has been referred to in Russia as the "Russian Spring".

Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. The rise of the Russian Empire coincided with the decline of neighbouring rival powers: the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Qajar Iran, the Ottoman Empire, and Qing China. It also held colonies in North America between 1799 and 1867. Covering an area of approximately 22,800,000 square kilometres (8,800,000 sq mi), it remains the third-largest empire in history, surpassed only by the British Empire and the Mongol Empire; it ruled over a population of 125.6 million people per the 1897 Russian census, the only census carried out during the entire imperial period. Owing to its geographic extent across three continents at its peak, it featured great ethnic, linguistic, religious, and economic diversity.

Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country spanning most of northern Eurasia that existed from 30 December 1922 to 26 December 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national republics; in practice, both its government and its economy were highly centralized until its final years. It was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of Moscow serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic: the Russian SFSR. Other major cities included Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Tashkent, Alma-Ata, and Novosibirsk. It was the largest country in the world, covering over 22,402,200 square kilometres (8,649,500 sq mi) and spanning eleven time zones.

Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation

Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation

In February and March 2014, Russia invaded and subsequently annexed the Crimean Peninsula, taking it from Ukraine. This event took place in the aftermath of the Revolution of Dignity and is part of the wider Russo-Ukrainian War.

Roman Abramovich

Roman Abramovich

Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich is a Russian oligarch and politician. He is the former owner of Chelsea, a Premier League football club in London, England, and is the primary owner of the private investment company Millhouse LLC. He has Russian, Israeli and Portuguese citizenship.

Revocation of Ukrainian citizenship and subsequent sanctions

On 28 July 2022, Zelenskyy appeared to confirm the authenticity of an 18 July presidential decree published online by the opposition MP Serhiy Vlasenko[150][151] that strips Ukrainian citizenship from Kolomoyskyi and nine others,[152] including both Hennadiy Korban, who had been deputy governor of Dnipropetrovsk under Kolomoyskyi (and since 24 February 2022, head of the Dnipro Territorial Defence),[153] and Vadim Rabinovich.[152] Although dual citizenship is prohibited in Ukrainian law, all three held Israeli passports.[154] Kolomoyskyi who additionally holds a Cypriot passport, has reportedly quipped that while Ukrainian law prohibits dual citizenship, it says nothing about triple citizenship.[133]

Kolomoyskyi potentially had safe haven in Ukraine. Article 25 of the country's constitution states that “a citizen of Ukraine cannot be expelled from Ukraine or extradited to another state.” But there may be grounds for appeal, as it also rules that "a citizen of Ukraine cannot be deprived of citizenship".[133]

"There is no speculation", Zelenskyy said. "We grant or revoke citizenship of our state on a regular basis. This is a constant process. And all this happens all the time within the framework of the current legislation."[151] Justice Minister Denys Maliuska refuted the suggestion that by this measure Zelenskyy shields Kolomoyskyi from the proscriptions of the anti-oligarch law. He noted that for the purposes of the law foreigners can also be designated as oligarchs.[150]

A source in Zelenskyy’s team has reportedly claimed that Kolomoyskyi had been "holed up" in the Menorah Centre he helped finance in Dnipro, hiding from Russian shelling, and that he has retired not only from business, but also from "socio-political life".[155]

At the end of June 2022, the barrister representing Kolomoyskyi in the London High Court, Mark Howard QC, said his client was a “target” of the Russian president. “We know that President Putin has him within his sights,” he told the court. The barrister for his co-defendant in the Privatbank fraud case made the same claim for Hennadiy Boholyubov, who he also described as hiding from bombs in Ukraine. Clare Montgomery QC suggested to the court that the war has “rendered oligarchy a worthless concept in the Ukraine”. Acknowledging the difficulties faced by the two billionaires in preparing their cases, the judge, Mr Justice Trower, agreed to delay the trial until June 2023.[156]

Under martial law, in November 2023 the Ukrainian authorities seized two oil companies, Ukrnafta and Ukrtatnafta, in which Kolomoyskyi is a major shareholder, after Ukraine’s security service (SBU) said it uncovered the embezzlement of more than $1bn.[157][158] At then end of January 2023, they raided Kolomoyskyi's home in what an ally of President Zelenskyy described as a sweeping wartime clampdown on corruption that would change the country.[157]

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Personal life

Kolomoyskyi holds Israeli and Cypriot citizenship.[159] He is married to Dnipro native Irina Mikhailovna Kolomoyska. They have a daughter, Angelika Kolomoyska, and a son, Israel Zvi Kolomoyskyi.[160]

Awards

Source: "Ihor Kolomoyskyi", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, March 15th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ihor_Kolomoyskyi.

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Notes
  1. ^ Zhukov has been dominate in JKX Oil and Gas since the 1980s when it held a monopoly on oil exports from the port of Odessa. In 2006, Zhukov owned a 25.88% stake in JKX Oil and Gas.[37][38]
  2. ^ In 2008, Alexander Zhukov's daughter Daria Zhukova (Russian: Дарья Жукова) was Roman Abramovich's girlfriend.[39][40]
  3. ^ Alternatively translated as "schizophrenic dwarf."[93]
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