Ukrainian Oligarch Dodges U.S. Justice
May 1, 2015 11:23 AM EDT
By Leonid Bershidsky
The Russian propaganda narrative about U.S. meddling in Ukraine has a hard time penetrating mainstream thinking about the Ukraine crisis: The U.S., after all, isn't sending tanks or troops to stoke a war in the country, while Russia is. Even so, a judge in Vienna has refused a U.S. request to extradite a Ukrainian oligarch on grounds that it was politically motivated.
The trial and its outcome are important for those who want to understand the Ukrainian situation's complexity rather than accept its black-and-white depictions by both sides.
The oligarch's name is Dmytro Firtash. He emerged from secrecy in 2004 as the owner, with a junior partner, of a 50 percent stake in Rosukrenergo -- an intermediary set up to sell Russian and Central Asian gas to Ukraine; Russia's Gazprom controlled the other half of the company. Suspicion was widespread that the company's function was to funnel cash to powerful figures in both Kiev and Moscow. Yulia Tymoshenko, who became Ukrainian prime minister in 2005, fought the scheme, and Firtash fought Tymoshenko.
In 2008, Firtash went to see the U.S. ambassador in Kiev, William Taylor, to tell him that Tymoshenko wanted to set up her own gas middleman for her personal enrichment and was flirting with Russia to do so, while he, as a Ukrainian patriot, was determined to thwart her. The ambassador didn't buy it.
In 2009, Tymoshenko finally succeeded in displacing Rosukrenergo, signing a direct contract with Gazprom, albeit at the cost of much higher gas prices for Ukraine. By that time, however, Firtash had set himself up as one of the country's most powerful oligarchs, whose investments in the chemical industry and agriculture allowed him to maintain a lavish lifestyle and wield influence on both then President Viktor Yanukovych's administration and the political opposition. The center of his business empire was in Austria, where a number of Yanukovych allies and relatives had also set up companies.
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http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-05-01/ukrainian-oligarch-dodges-u-s-justice
