Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

Net Worth: $88 million

Age: 64

Marital status: Married, two daughters and one son

Last year: $479 million

Industry: Chemicals industry

“I believe that the day will come when people will have a preference for Ukrainian chemists,” Yulia Tymoshenko declared on May 31 in a congratulatory message to Ukrainian chemists. But the prime minister-believer couldn’t do anything to help Nikolai Yankovsky, the practicing “priest” of the chemicals industry, to save the sector from the consequences of the crisis. On May 22, BYuT almost unanimously refused to give life to the law ‘On measures of state support and stimulation of the development of mineral fertilizer production in Ukraine.’ President Victor Yushchenko vetoed Yankovsky’s bill on benefits for chemists, perceiving a violation of constitutional norms in such patronage. There just weren’t enough votes in the team of the great believer in Ukrainian chemistry to overturn the veto. “From last December the chemical sector has been losing UAH300 million every month,” Yankovsky laments. “Ukrainian chemical plants are working at barely 50percent of capacity.”