Who are the ruling oligarchs of Ukraine
From Poroshenko to Ahmetov to Kolomoisky, here are the real strong powers of Ukraine. The in-depth analysis by Stefano Grazioli for Tag43
Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelensky is fighting two wars: one against Russia , the other – at home – against the oligarchs. Both since he was elected in the spring of 2019. He then sent home Petro Poroshenko , the outgoing head of state, who joined Bankova in 2014, after the regime change in Kiev. Poroshenko was not a pure politician, but also a representative of the strong powers that have always decided the fate of Ukraine, since the collapse of the USSR in 1991 and independence from Moscow. Zelensky, a comic actor who turned into a successful politician in an operation that lasted a few months with the direct media and financial support of various oligarchs and the tacit one of others, thus found himself in the midst of a series of conflicts that he has not yet managed to untangle, precisely because they are genetically inherent in a political-economic system that in over 30 years has always been characterized by the mixture of big business and state management.
YANUKOVIC'S EXIT OF SCENE
Despite the triumph in the Presidential elections three years ago and the one in the Legislatures of the same year that gave him the majority in parliament, Zelensky remained entangled in the mechanisms of the oligarchy which, despite the two revolutions, or supposed such, of 2004 and 2014, they haven't changed. The protagonists of the Ukrainian events are always the same, except for Viktor Yanukovych, the president who is a friend of all the Ukrainian oligarchs and a little too much of Vladimir Putin, who was ousted with the approval of the European Union and the United States in what is was considered a coup in the Kremlin. A similar fate, last May, had fallen to Viktor Medvedchuk . Oligarch and leader of the Ukrainian Choice organization, sponsor of the pro-Russian opposition and opposed to the country's approach to the EU, ended up under house arrest on charges of high treason. A clear message for Putin, given the excellent relationship, even personal, with Medvedchuk: the Russian president is the godfather of the daughter of the oligarch Daryna, born in 2004. Zelensky and the internal war in Poroshenko
Apart from these exceptions, the faces are always the same. First of all that of Rinat Akhmetov , for decades the number one of the Ukrainian oligarchs, who has always extricated himself between politics and business with enormous success, becoming the richest man in the country and one of the most powerful puppeteers behind presidents and governments . With a certain political predilection for the specter that can be defined as pro-Russian, given his origin from the Donbass, Ahkmetov had to suffer a little, economically and politically, with the arrival of his rival Poroshenko as president, but is now recovering under Zelensky who yes, it has launched a political-judicial campaign against the overwhelming power of the oligarchs – and the arrest of Medvedchuk proves it – but focusing on a few, or rather only one: Petro Poroshenko precisely. The penultimate president, with a steady job at the top of the country's businessman rankings and leader of the largest pro-Western opposition party, is now accused of another betrayal for doing business with pro-Russian separatists in the South East and faces 15 years in prison . It is selective justice that hangs like a sword of Damocles every time a new tenant enters Bankova.
KOLOMOISKY, THE BILLIONAIRE SUPPORTER OF ZELENSKY
Yanukovych instead focused on Yulia Tymoshenko, who before becoming prime minister at the time of the Orange Revolution of 2004 was known as the only female oligarch and gas princess, as she had accumulated her fortune with the opaque energy trade between Russia and Ukraine. . Poroshenko had also targeted Dmitry Firtash, another gas boss, who had to take refuge in Vienna and since 2014 hit by sanctions for having sold titanium to Russia. Also in 2014, Igor Kolomoisky, strong in the banking and oil sector and one of the richest Ukrainians, entered the scene in a big way, even becoming governor in the Dnipropetrosvk region. He was Zelensky's main sponsor, along with the others who have always kept a low and neutral profile, without strong political preferences, but winking and opening their wallets to everyone.
THE PINCHUK STRATEGY, PROTOTYPE OF THE UKRAINIAN OLIGARK
Master in this sense is Victor Pinchuk, the prototype of the Ukrainian oligarch, who already institutionalized the marriage between business and politics in the 90s, marrying the daughter of the then president Leonid Kuchma. The Pinchuk empire, between the steel industry and the media, has expanded under every presidency and also on the international chessboard has withstood the revolutionary shocks thanks to the traditional family balance. His father-in-law Kuchma, after the 2004 failure to lead his dolphin Yanukovych to the presidency, defeated by Viktor Yushchenko, three decades later ended up mediating for the Ukrainian side in the trilateral contact group with Russia and OSCE (Organization for security and cooperation in Europe) in the peace process in Donbass, replaced only recently by Zelensky's adviser Andrei Yermak. Pinchuk himself founded the Yalta European Strategy over 15 years ago, a platform that looks favorably on relations with the West.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/chi-sono-gli-oligarchi-padroni-ucraina/ on Sun, 20 Feb 2022 07:41:49 +0000.