Enemy of Tymoshenko? Dmitry Firtash

[Eugen]

In Vienna arrested the Ukrainian oligarch, the founder of Group DF Dmitry Firtash. Neither the businessman himself nor his bodyguards offered any resistance, although they even brought in special forces, the counter-terrorist unit of EKO Cobra, to detain him. Today, the court will decide whether to leave the businessman in custody. But most likely, he will be extradited to the States, after all, it was the American court that issued the warrant for the arrest of the oligarch after he got acquainted with the results of an eight-year FBI investigation.

Representatives of Group DF have already stated that the arrest is not related to the events in Ukraine, but concerns a certain “investment project of 2006”. The source of the agency "Interfax" said - we are talking about business in India. Firtash really had an interest in this country: even before the crisis, he was planning to build a titanium and metallurgical plants there, having invested about $ 2 billion in total. However, this remained at the level of plans.

Therefore, another reason for the arrest seems more likely - a possible connection with the criminal authority Semyon Mogilevich. This person, living in Moscow, is among the ten most wanted fugitives, according to information on the official website of the FBI. By the way, Firtash didn’t visit the USA before because of the fear of being detained. So, the businessman did not attend the opening in Washington of a memorial dedicated to the memory of the Holodomor, for which he himself donated $ 2.5 million.

Firtash is not on the list of 18 Ukrainians whose assets have recently been “frozen” by the EU. However, the fact that the businessman was arrested right now may have a political motive. “Firtash in the energy sector had close ties with Russia.

Financial Times Analyst, Standard Bank Timothy Ashe : "I think this is a clear signal to the oligarchs from the countries of the former Union: if they want to do business in the West, they must share certain basic values."

Turkmenbashi, Gazprom and Mogilevich

The rise of Dmitry Firtash is a kind of embodiment of the "American dream" in the post-Soviet space. A poor family, service in the army, then work as a fireman, small-scale trade in the small town of Chernivtsi, first money and moving to Moscow in 1991. Life at the Rossiya Hotel, where, as the oligarch later said in an interview, like flies to a light bulb, officials and businessmen from all over the former Union flocked. And Firtash met with a civil servant from Ashgabat: he helped him establish food supplies to Turkmenistan, as well as the sale of Turkmen gas in Ukraine. At that time, the entrepreneur even happened to communicate with Saparmurat Niyazov. There were more dubious connections. In the late 1990s, Firtash became a co-owner (according to another version, established) Highrock Holding. Galina Telesh, the common-law wife of the famous crime boss Semyon Mogilevich, became a partner in this business. Many years later, in an interview with the US ambassador in Kiev, the oligarch said that many in the West did not understand what Ukraine was like after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a country that, in the absence of a functioning official power, lived according to the laws of the street. Mogilevich’s permission was necessary to do business. This conversation became known thanks to WikiLeaks.

However, for the time being, Firtash played only the second violin. The main supplies of Central Asian gas went through Itera, which is closely associated with Gazprom. Everything changed in 2001 - after the resignation of Ram Vyakhirev and a number of Itera managers, they were removed from the game. It was necessary to find a replacement. Just then, the First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Oleg Dubina and the head of Naftogaz Yuriy Boyko brought Firtash to Moscow to introduce him to the new Gazprom management. “Today at Gazprom everyone has their own meadow, and if you come to the wrong place, they won’t talk to you,” the oligarch explained in Forbes’s interview the difference between the old Vyakhirevsky and the new Millerovsky style of management. However, as in Turkmenistan, he managed to agree with everyone. The businessman controlled by EuralTransGas became the exclusive supplier of Turkmen gas to Ukraine (Gazprom provided gas transit services).

The Orange Revolution unexpectedly turned into even greater luck. Relations between Russia and Ukraine have cooled, gas conflicts have begun. Gazprom wanted to sell fuel at a price close to European, but that would kill Ukrainian industry. In the end, an original compromise was found. All gas to Ukraine is sold through an intermediary - the company "RosUkrEnergo". It acquires Russian raw materials at $ 210 per 1000 cubic meters and Turkmen raw materials at $ 44. And he implements the resulting “cocktail” at $ 90, and sends part for export to Europe, where the price already starts at $ 150. The founders of RosUkrEnergo were Dmitry Firtash and Gazprombank. The scheme worked for several years and allowed the businessman to become even richer. Dividends from RosUkrEnergo are estimated at $ 375 million in 2006 and $ 390 in 2007. This was put to an end by Yulia Tymoshenko, who became prime minister at the end of 2007. She considered the intermediary’s activities to be opaque and demanded direct contracts between Gazprom and Naftogaz. Later, these agreements, however, became the reason for the criminal prosecution of Ms. Tymoshenko.

Firtash did not remain idle even after the elimination of RosUkrEnergo. By that time, he already had many other enterprises (Group DF was created in 2007 to consolidate them). As the Korrespondent magazine notes, Firtash’s strategy is the total purchase of assets in a single industry, in fact, the creation of a monopoly there. Now Group DF controls the nitrogen business (OSTCHEM holding, production of mineral fertilizers), the titanium industry, invests in gas distribution companies, has infrastructure projects around the world (through the Zangas group), and recently it is buying up banks and the media business.

Friend to everyone

Firtash began active in the UK in 2008, setting up the Firtash Foundation. Just shortly before this, the FBI was seriously interested in the oligarch’s relations with Mogilevich. And if a Ukrainian hoped to “whitewash” his reputation in this way, then he completely succeeded. Old connections helped, of course. For example, Lord Oxford (Raymond Asquith), a British peer and former diplomat who worked as an adviser to the British Embassy in Kiev in 1992-1997, became a member of the Group DF Board and Audit Committee. The deputy chairman of the council is Robert Shelter-Jones, an English politician close to the Conservative Party of Great Britain. He also did business in Ukraine for many years. The Firtash Foundation founded the Ukrainian studies program in Cambridge, annually pays a scholarship to five students, citizens of Ukraine, and is engaged in various cultural projects.

It is amazing how Firtash manages to be friends with both stiff British and former Putin judo sparring partner Arkady Rotenberg at the same time. At first, they competed for the purchase of the Russian-based Minudobreniya enterprise, but when Rotenberg got the asset, they agreed on the joint operation of the Togliatti-Gorlovka-Odessa ammonia pipeline. And most importantly - NF Trading, controlled by Firtash, became responsible for the sales of Mineral Fertilizers in foreign markets. Subsequently, the Russian entrepreneur invited the Ukrainian partner to participate in the construction of a fertilizer plant in the Far East. True, so far this is only a project.

Firtash and Euromaidan

How did Dmitry Firtash feel during recent protests? On the one hand, he has close ties with the environment of Yanukovych. First of all, with Deputy Prime Minister Yury Boyko (the one who brought Firtash to Moscow as the head of Naftogaz to get acquainted with Gazprom) and the head of the presidential administration, Sergei Levochkin. Under Yanukovych, the oligarch’s business felt good. At least Firtash, Akhmetov and Yanukovych Jr. are called the main buyers of large assets in recent years. Although, perhaps, the matter is not so much in the appearance of a new president, but in the disappearance of Yulia Tymoshenko, who, as prime minister, tried to stop all Ukrainian enterprises of Firtash. In 2010, Korrespondent magazine estimated the state of the oligarch at $ 354 million, and in 2013 at $ 2.3 billion. Forbes, however, gives a more modest assessment of the state of Firtash - $ 673 million, 14th place in the ranking of millionaires.

If we discard the conspiracy theories and adhere to the facts, it turns out that from the latest events the businessman is more likely to lose. And not just because of the arrest. If Yulia Tymoshenko returns to power, the old disputes under RosUkrEnergo contracts, which are now closed in many courts, will most likely resume. On the other hand, Firtash, through the Inter Media Group, owns Inter, one of the leading Ukrainian channels. During the election period, the owner of such a “button” is one of the most influential people in Ukraine. Provided that he is free, of course.


Source [DLMURL] https://slon.ru/business/vrag_timoshenko_drug_rossii_kto_takoy_dmitriy_firtash-1070282.xhtml [/ DLMURL]

 

[Матушкин Андрей Николаевич]

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