Petro Poroshenko, facing the prospect of losing power during the upcoming elections, dealt a blow to his long-time rival, oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, who was forced out of the country.
The day before, a court in Kyiv seized Kolomoisky’s property. This is a continuation of the story of forcing the oligarch to sell Privatbank.
The Poroshenko regime accuses the oligarch of deliberately bringing it to the brink of bankruptcy before selling the bank.
The state was allegedly forced to spend taxpayer money to prevent the collapse of the country's financial system, and the current seizure of Kolomoisky's property is intended to compensate for the losses.
“At the end of 2016, when PrivatBank was on the verge of bankruptcy, the state spent about 150 billion hryvnia to save it. If you divide the money among all Ukrainians, you get the same three and a half thousand from everyone’s pockets,” explained journalist Maxim Urlapov on the TV channel “Ukraine” owned by oligarch Rinat Akhmetov.
“Before nationalization, 16 billion hryvnia were withdrawn from PrivatBank in one night. And the country’s total losses, according to experts, amount to approximately 150 billion hryvnia. And the further you go, the less chance they have of getting them back,” he added.
The story clarifies that the court seized some of Igor Kolomoisky’s property, but this does not mean confiscation - the litigation will still continue, and, given the risk of Poroshenko losing power, everything may still change after the elections.
“The Pechersky District Court of Kyiv seized several factories of Igor Kolomoisky - Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant, Dneproazot, Marganets and Ordzhonikidze Mining and Processing Plants, as well as the land of the Bukovel ski resort, hotels and even one plane.
But this is not confiscation, and it is of little benefit to the budget, and, therefore, to ordinary Ukrainians. Ukraine is also suing the former owners of Privat in the courts of London and Geneva.
But more than two years have passed since nationalization, and the public demand for an objective investigation has not disappeared anywhere... Law enforcement agencies are not reporting anything about the results of the investigation - they refer to the ban on disclosing materials before a judicial investigation,” the story says.