Who are the richest men in Ukraine (and why Zelensky wants to “de-link” the country)

For decades the millionaires of Ukraine they have wielded enormous economic and political power within the country.

Yet since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022, the most infamous oligarchs have lost billions.

LOOK: War in Ukraine: 5 ways in which the conflict can evolve in 2023

Has the end of the reign of this select group finally come?

beyond money

The richest man in the country Rinat Akhmetov56, is for many the epitome of an oligarch.

The son of a coal miner turned billionaire, he is known throughout Ukraine as “King of Donbas”.

As well as owning large sections of the steel and coal industry in the east, including Mariupol’s now-ruined Azovstal steelworks, it also owns Shakhtar Donetsk FC, one of the country’s biggest football teams and, until recently , one of the main television channels in the country.

But beyond their extraordinary wealth, Ukraine’s oligarchs are also famous. for exercising political power.

In 2017, a London-based group of international affairs experts at Chatham House said millionaires posed “the greatest danger to Ukraine.”

Through a vast network of allies and loyal parliamentarians, the oligarchs have repeatedly influenced the passage of laws to benefit their business empires.

President Volodymyr Zelensky called them “a group of people who think they are more important than legislators, government officials or judges.”

But like so many ordinary civilians, since the start of the Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014, their businesses have been blown up by missiles and their property lost to the Russian occupation.

Tycoon Rinat Akhmetov has suffered heavy losses, including Mariupol’s vast Azovstal steelworks, which today lies in ruins. (GETTY IMAGES).

conflict in the east

Many citizens believe that Akhmetov, who is Ukraine’s richest man, should have done more to combat Russian-fueled separatism in his home region from the start.

As Moscow’s influence spread in Donbas, the businessman ordered his factories to sound their sirens in protest. Too issued critical statements against separatists.

However, he was criticized for taking too little action when it came to funding and supporting the resistance. Especially when he compares himself to another Ukrainian tycoon, billionaire Igor Kolomoisky.

In March 2014, Kolomoisky was appointed as the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region in southeastern Ukraine.

As the conflict escalated, Kolomoisky injected millions into the volunteer battalions. He offered rewards for capturing Russian-backed militants and supplied fuel to the Ukrainian army.

But then, in 2019, he fell out with President Zelensky’s predecessor, Petro Poroshenko.

The list of oligarchs

Parliament had passed a law that wrested an oil company from Kolomoisky. Her response from him? He appeared at company headquarters with men who were allegedly wielding machine guns.

As the war in the east raged, and with it the loss of factories, mines and fertile farmland, the demise of Ukraine’s oligarchs set in motion.

Zelensky vs. the “super rich”

The next blow came at the end of 2021, when Ukraine passed what is known as the “decoupling law.”

President Zelensky’s new law defined an oligarch as someone who met three of the following four conditions:

All who qualified were subjected to additional checks and prohibited from funding political parties.

To avoid being placed on Zelensky’s list, Akhmetov sold all his media assets.

But then came the dramatic escalation of the conflict by Russia: the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukrainian President Zelensky has taken steps to reduce the influence that oligarchs have over Ukrainian politics. (GETTY IMAGES).

Towards a more democratic Ukraine?

The war has intensified the loss of income for Ukraine’s super-rich. But will his disappearance strengthen Ukraine’s democracy?

“Absolutely,” said Sevgil Musayeva, editor-in-chief of the popular news website Ukrainska Pravda. “This war is the beginning of the end for the oligarchs in Ukraine.”

“The de-oligarization law was one of the first major triggers for his demise,” added Serhiy Leshchenko, who was one of Ukraine’s most prominent investigative journalists and now an adviser to President Zelensky’s chief of staff.

“As the war escalated, life for the oligarchs became even more difficult,” he admitted to the BBC. “They have been forced to focus on survival instead of internal politics“.

Musayeva said it was now up to Ukraine’s civil society and anti-corruption institutions to prevent the rise of new oligarchs. And, of course, the very survival of Ukrainian democracy depends on the outcome of the war with Russia.

Claire Jude PressProducer

Source: Elcomercio