Kolomoisky and thimbles: the oligarch strikes back
The former owner of Privat is still trying to undermine the situation in Ukraine
While the richest oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, in an interview with the Washington Post, talks about how he started his career by playing a throw-in fool, his colleague Igor Kolomoisky after a loud transfer of his assets to ” Ukrnafta” and “Ukrtatnafta” under the control of the state, it seems that he decided to carefully “annoy” the state through his Russian contacts. Will Bankovaya want to finally get rid of ties with their partner, and what fate awaits the oligarch after the end of the war – read the material “Apostrophe”.
More than a month has passed since November 7, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksiy Danilov announced that by decision of the National Security and Defense Council, the assets of Ukrnafta and Ukrtatnafta were transferred to the control of the Ministry of Defense. Here it should be recalled that NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine owns 50% + 1 share of Ukrnafta, another 42% were owned by the companies of the Privat group of Igor Kolomoisky and his partners. Privat has exercised operational control over the company since February 2003, actually managing it manually through its proteges. In turn, Naftogaz owns 43.05% in Ukrtatnafta, the rest of the shares were distributed among offshore companies, the beneficiary of part of which is also Kolomoisky, who was called the actual owner of the company's main asset – the Kremenchug Oil Refinery, which was destroyed by the Russians this spring.
The silent Kolomoisky, who has not been heard from the very beginning of the large-scale attack on Ukraine, seems to have decided to respond to the nationalization of these strategic facilities in an asymmetrical way – and again turned to Privatbank.
After 2021, the London Court of Arbitration made final decisions on the proceedings initiated against the bank, rejecting all claims against the bank, it decided to move the legal battles to Ukraine, involving his Russian acquaintance from Switzerland, oligarch Vladimir Yorikh.
The latter, the former co-owner of one of the largest Russian metallurgical corporations Mechel, through his company Pala Assets Holdings Ltd, is trying in a Ukrainian court to declare illegal the technical procedure for the nationalization of Privatbank bail-in. In particular, the agreement on the purchase of shares concluded between PrivatBank and UK SPV on December 20, 2016, by which PrivatBank's obligations to UK SPV were exchanged for shares of the bank's additional issue when PrivatBank was withdrawn from the market with the participation of the state. In fact, this is another attempt to cancel the nationalization of Privat in court.
The next “collision” of the Dnipro oligarch on “Privat” is not at all accidental. He, like his colleagues in the workshop, found himself in an uncomfortable position with the start of the war, political expert Viktor Nebozhenko tells Apostrophe.
“For all the oligarchs, including Akhmetov and Kolomoisky, the war was a big nuisance, because they know how to steal and exploit only in peacetime, and during the war everything should work for defense and victory, and the oligarchs, it turns out, interfere with this. In fact, we are faced with the need to nationalize oligarchic structures during the war – you never organize a war economy if part of it belongs to the oligarchs, that's all,” the expert says.
Nebozhenko’s colleague, political scientist Oleksiy Golobutsky recalls that Kolomoisky’s toxicity has not gone away, and our current main sponsor, the United States, has a lot of questions for the oligarch. According to the expert, the fact that he is still not in America and does not yet answer questions from law enforcement agencies is solely the result of the war, and the Ukrainian authorities are interested in saying goodbye to him.
“Kolomoisky’s influence is based not only on money and connections, but also on control over very specific groups of deputies of the Verkhovna Rada. Zelensky wants to get rid of them as soon as he can. That is, as soon as peace comes and martial law is lifted and elections are announced – everything will be done so that these people do not remain in the Rada, as well as the relevant connections – Zelensky has every opportunity for this, ”says Golobutsky.
He draws attention to another interesting aspect: after the war, no one will give Ukraine money for restoration just like that, this is already clear from the latest reports, when not 300, but 100 billion Russian gold and foreign exchange reserves allegedly turned out to be “frozen” in the West. Accordingly, the expert believes, there is a high probability that they will tell us that you have enough of your own money, which is in Western accounts and was stolen by Igor Kolomoisky, Konstantin Zhevago and others. And if the West is ready to break the rules by “freezing” Russian reserves for the first time and giving them to us, then the question of the oligarchs will definitely be raised. No one will wait until we reform and fight corruption – too much money is at stake. Therefore, Golobutsky notes, the “Kolomoisky issue” will be resolved as soon as the hostilities end.
Viktor Nebozhenko is not so optimistic about the change in Bankova's attitude towards Kolomoisky. In his opinion, the state simply took his assets in Ukrnafta and Ukrtatnafta “for storage”, Kolomoisky simply cannot manage them during the war. After its completion, the assets of the oligarch will be returned back – this is actually a form of preserving the old oligarchy and dividing property between new and old oligarchs, so we are not talking about the nationalization of the state of the oligarchs, they are simply helped to survive.
Political scientist Yevhen Magda agrees with his colleague, who draws attention to the fact that the flow of crude oil to Ukraine has decreased, we are buying mainly finished petroleum products, respectively, Kolomoisky Ukrnafta and Ukrtatnafta are hardly needed now.
“The confiscation of his shares in the mentioned companies by the state may be a kind of “optimization” of the business. In addition, Kolomoisky’s nature is such that he always snaps and will do it when it suits him, but now it’s »not the time» pull him, so the oligarch feels comfortable and will feel that way. And only after the victory can he be threatened with a voyage to America, not earlier, but then we'll see. It’s easier for them to change power and get everything,” Magda tells Apostrophe.
In his opinion, the West will give us funds in such a way that they can grab a billion or two without control or “exchange” them for some necessary things are simply impossible for Americans. It seems that this was not understood either at Bankovaya or at the headquarters of the Ukrainian nouveau riche.
“Big oligarchs – Yaroslavsky, Akhmetov, Kolomoisky, others – still have the opportunity to compromise with the President's Office, national interests are not taken into account by any of the parties. Here Churchill, after the start of the Second World War, did not stand on ceremony with “bags of money” and oligarchic incomes – Britain needed to survive. And we are cunning, cunning and cunning again,” Viktor Nebozhenko concludes.
Denis Zakharov
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