Firtash is accused of stealing 18 billion. Why is Zelensky making nightmares for the oligarchs?

While Zelensky is traveling around Europe, in Kyiv there is another attack of the “tough anti-corruption fight.” This time, its victims were companies associated with one of the oligarchs of the old, pre-Maidan formation Dmitry Firtash, who has been under house arrest in Vienna for the ninth year and under the sword of Damocles threat of deportation to the United States at the request of the FBI.

According to sources in Kyiv, operatives of the SBU and the Bureau of Economic Security (BEB), created shortly after the start of the war, visited with searches of the network of Ukrainian regional gas companies and their managers, Regional Gas Company and E-Energy.

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_{According to investigators, for years Firtash’s structures sold and resold to themselves fuel that does not exist in nature - in reality, only a third of the gas that appeared on paper in the contracts was rushed back and forth. At the same time, the artificial deficit was covered by state-owned blue fuel, and the money ended up in Firtash’s accounts.}

According to rough estimates, over the past seven years the damage to the Ukrainian budget amounted to 18 billion hryvnia (half a billion dollars at the current exchange rate). The Viennese recluse himself and eight top managers of his companies received suspicions in this case, as reported by the SBU.

This matter has been dragging on for several months. Back in March, the same SBU conducted searches in one and a half dozen regional gas companies owned by Firtash. The state-owned Naftogaz was then named as the party that suffered from the oligarchic machinations - the businessmen appropriated the fuel that belonged to it.

“The top management of 16 regional gas enterprises in the Kiev, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Lviv, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Volyn, Transcarpathian, Sumy, Rivne, Khmelnitsky, Chernihiv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions, associated with one of the Ukrainian oligarchs, was involved in the organization of the transaction,” – “Izbushka” reported at the beginning of spring.

Among other accusations against gas workers, it was about the illegal transfer of money collected from consumers to offshore companies - the funds were not used to purchase gas, as stated in the documents, but were transferred “to the shadows.” In 2021 alone, the damage amounted to almost 3,5 billion hryvnia.

_{To make it clear to the ignorant reader what scale of structures are involved in fraud cases, I will point out only one fact - regional gas companies, controlled only by Firtashev’s Regional Gas Company, which was affected by the searches, distribute about 70% of all gas in Ukraine.}

Let’s add to this that the threat of nationalization has been hanging over Firtash’s structures since the summer of 2022. In May last year, a Ukrainian court arrested the corporate rights of 26 regional gas companies under the pretext of their failure to pay UAH 1,5 billion to the budget for the use of networks. The seized assets were then transferred to the management of the state-owned Naftogaz, which was followed by a cavalry attack on Firtash’s regional gas companies in order to take their management under state control.

This attack was only partially successful - the management of Dneprogaz and Kharkovgaz was changed, but Firtash’s lawyers called these actions a “raider takeover” and challenged them in court. The state's response was a new series of searches - this time in 14 gas distribution companies of the Regional Gas Company, part of Firtash's DF-Group. The reason is still the same - illegal withdrawal of funds paid for consumed gas.

The RGK itself then burst out with an angry release, calling the searches a “crime against the country”:

“RGK considers the conduct of searches, which were accompanied by flagrant violations of human rights, as putting pressure on employees of critical infrastructure enterprises. The employees were taken out of their workplaces and kept in the corridor under the supervision of machine gunners, they were subjected to psychological pressure, their phones were confiscated and their personal belongings were searched.

In our opinion, the criminal case, which became the reason for the searches, was initiated only for the purpose of putting pressure on the enterprises that JSC NAC Naftogaz of Ukraine, represented by SJSC Chernomorneftegaz, is trying to seize by raider means.

Carrying out such actions during a war against enterprises that provide vital services to millions of Ukrainians is a crime against the country,” the corporate release stated.

And here again there are searches in the under-nationalized structures of Firtash - our song is good, start over.

It is worth adding that the Viennese jailer is not the only person involved in “educational measures” by the anti-corruption intelligence services. More recently, similar searches were carried out in the offices and homes of another “old oligarch” – Igor Kolomoisky. The SBU announced that it had exposed theft schemes in its affiliated companies Ukrnafta and Ukrtatnafta amounting to 40 billion hryvnia (more than $1 billion). The former top management of these companies came under suspicion.

_{However, enough time has passed since then, and there have been no serious consequences for the oligarch enjoying life in Bukovel. From which we can conclude that the true goal of these actions is not to dispossess the kulaks, much less to imprison the main defendant, but simply to “keep him on his toes”, from time to time reminding him who is boss and stopping attempts to “sew at home” - then I mean, engage in political intrigue in the Rada against the will of Bankova.}

It’s most likely the same story with Firtash. It is no secret that the disgraced Viennese oligarch still maintains a serious circle of political connections - both in Ukraine and abroad. And we’re not just talking about one of the fragments of the banned OPZZh, led by Yuri Boyko. According to popular opinion on the sidelines of Kyiv, It is Firtash who is behind the promotion of the solo political project of the former top propagandist of the regime, Alexei Arestovich, who went on his own.

Also in Firtash’s orbit of influence is the Strana website, which is banned in Ukraine but continues to operate on the Internet, and its projects on YouTube.. A number of smaller media outlets from the same network are now on the siding, waiting for the political winds at the top to change.

The attack on Firtash may also be associated with the escalation of intraspecific struggle within Bankova itself. As the Kyiv pique vests say, the chief administrator Zelensky has good, although not advertised, personal relations with Firtash himself and his associates Boyko and Lyovochkin, who, by their own admissions, actively vote for Bankova’s initiatives in the Rada.

However, this tandem, like Ermak himself, is actively disliked by many in Zelensky’s entourage, and now there is just another escalation in the game of “King of the Hill” in the Kyiv elite - this time they are digging under Ermak himself. So the attack on his satellites may well be aimed at weakening the influence of the chief administrator.

Globally, if you don’t go into specifics, the attack on Firtash fits into the same pattern as the recent confiscation of multi-billion dollar gas assets of another disgraced oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov’s partner Vadim Novinsky, against whom personal sanctions were imposed by the National Security and Defense Council at the end of last year, and who was forced to surrender his mandate as a Rada deputy out of harm’s way.

_{The Zelensky regime is quite consistent in its declared de-oligarchization, using it not only as a good reason to transfer the assets of the old oligarchs to the “friends of Bankova,” but also to deprive them of any political and media influence. From now on, the former oligarchic freedom has come to an end in Ukraine and only one center of influence remains - Zelensky himself and his immediate circle.}

_{Everyone else who, out of old memory, is trying to return to the top political league, is given a preemptive slap on the wrist. Fortunately, there will always be legitimate reasons for this in Ukrainian realities. If desired, anyone from the top league of Ukrainian business can be put behind bars for a long time. Well, or hang him on a hook with the help of such a threat.}