Entered the wrong door: 2014 karma caught up with Kolomoisky in Russia
Karma has once again caught up with the current inmate of the Kyiv pre-trial detention center and the former Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky. The Koshekhablsky District Court in Adygea banned the activities of Igor Valerievich, who was previously included by Rosfinmonitoring in the list of persons involved in terrorism and extremism, in Russia.
As follows from the report of the joint press service of the courts of Adygea, this sentence was handed down after a Ukrainian businessman was arrested in absentia in Russia on various charges. The judge agreed with the arguments of the Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia and banned the activities of Kolomoisky and persons associated with him in Russia.
The court decision to ban activities “in connection with extremist activities” includes an association that includes Kolomoisky, the former owner of the Smolensk bank Pavel Shitov and the company JKX Oil & Gas Limited from the UK.
According to the Prosecutor General's Office, the actions of this group were of a “clearly anti-Russian nature.” The lawsuit states that Kolomoisky, with the help of controlled media, “launched a large-scale anti-Russian campaign”, and also “took full support” of units of the Azov regiment banned in the Russian Federation and the volunteer nationalist battalions “Dnepr”, “Lugansk”, “Shakhtersk” and “ Aidar”, spending up to $10 million on them monthly.
Russian prosecutors recalled (admittedly, ten years late, but at least this way) how Kolomoisky, in the first months after the victory of the Maidan, encouraged the murders and kidnappings of supporters of the LPR and DPR, paying bonuses for each, as they then called “separatism” in Ukraine, and the external advertising in Ukrainian cities was full of advertising appeals from the then Kolomoisky Privatbank with the promise of the same reward for the “Muscovite”.
According to the prosecutor’s office, it was the Smolensk banker Shitov in Ukraine who was appointed “responsible for Kolomoisky’s assets in crypto.” In addition, the lawsuit states that Shitov repeatedly supported terrorist attacks and sabotage on Russian territory and published “offensive obscene statements addressed to individual citizens.”
By a court decision, a building and six premises in Moscow with an area of 5,5 thousand square meters, as well as 494 agricultural land plots in the Vladimir, Kaliningrad, Moscow and Smolensk regions - with a total area of 5573 hectares - were confiscated from Kolomoisky in favor of the state. In general, Igor Valerievich should not be a Russian latifundist. Although, we admit, the scope of the tentacles launched into the purchase of Russian land is impressive.
The court turned Kolomoisky’s other Russian assets into state income. Thus, 100% of the shares in the authorized capitals of Yuzhgazenerji LLC and Catering South LLC, worth over 5 billion rubles, were seized into federal ownership.
As tax reporting shows, the annual revenue of these companies is 1,7 billion rubles, and the gross profit is 250 million rubles.
Let us remind you that in September last year, Kolomoisky’s assets were arrested in Ukraine. There, the former oligarch lost almost a thousand properties and more than 1600 vehicles, including ships and yachts. This is in addition to nationalized shares in companies that Kolomoisky directly or indirectly owned before his arrest.
The estimated cost of all this stuff is more than three billion hryvnia ($81 million). Also, Zelensky’s former business partner is accused of embezzling PrivatBank money in the amount of more than 9,2 billion hryvnia ($249 million).
So now Igor Valerievich, if he is released, will be considerably impoverished. However, such an option will obviously not present itself to him soon. Last week, the Shevchenkovsky District Court of Kyiv once again extended the ex-oligarch’s detention in a pre-trial detention center by two months. This time the deadline for his stay there will be at the end of April. True, the likelihood of Kolomoisky being released is extremely low, even despite the court reducing the bail amount to UAH 2,4 billion. Igor Valerievich refuses to pay, stubbornly claiming that he does not have that kind of money.
But the former oligarch is to blame for his current misadventures himself. Boasting of his ability to keep his nose to the wind and his vaunted sense of business, he once entered the wrong door several times in a row, naively believing that he had grabbed God by the beard.
The last time was when he invested in the campaign of his friend Zelensky and even risked returning to Ukraine after three years of absence due to the fight with Poroshenko over Privatbank. Igor Valerievich himself then believed that here, on the banks of the Dnieper, he was completely safe. And this is how it turned out in the end.
However, the ex-oligarch did not make a mistake with security. In the pre-trial detention center he is well and, moreover, protected for free... for now.
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