Ukraine’s oligarchs are involved in all aspects of national life. The novel coronavirus crisis is no exception. As Ukraine started adopting measures to curb the disease’s spread last week, one of the first things on President Volodymyr Zelensky’s to-do list was inviting Ukraine’s richest for a meeting.
Zelensky and his closest entourage sat across the table from 15 millionaires and billionaires, with the two richest oligarchs, Rinat Akhmetov and Ihor
Kolomoisky, taking seats in the center. The president asked them to help Ukraine fight the pandemic.
At least, that’s what we were told they spoke about. The meeting wasn’t public, and all we saw from it was one photograph and a half-page press release. Even this was released hours after the meeting, and likely only because journalists spotted oligarchs’ cars arriving at the president’s office.
This is at least the second time when Zelensky has asked the oligarchs to chip in for the sake of the country. He also addressed them in the beginning of his term in 2019, asking the richest Ukrainians to help revive the Donbas after Russia’s war ends there.
With that prospect still in the cloudy future, the oligarchs did other things: Akmetov paid for new ambulances for the region, Victor Pinchuk bought apartments for Ukrainian sailors freed from Russian captivity. Kolomoisky, with his typical dry humor, said he can “paint a kiosk” at maximum. It was his way of complaining about having his weekly spending limited to 20,000 British pounds by a London court that is still deciding whether he embezzled $5.5 billion from the bank he used to own, Privatbank.
Now the oligarchs and several of the richest are expected to help fight COVID-19 and its consequences. “This land has been feeding them for years, now it’s time to give back,” Zelensky said after the meeting.
We don’t know how much the oligarchs will “give back,” at the president’s request, but something tells us that it won’t be anything comparable to how much they’ve taken from Ukraine over the years.
If the president wants to cover expenses in fighting the pandemic, we know of a great place to look for cash. Kolomoisky is suspected of stealing billions from PrivatBank. Akhmetov made billions on the notorious “Rotterdam Plus” energy tariff. Both cases are being investigated by the National AntiCorruption Bureau. If prosecution-worthy crimes are found leading to convictions, Ukraine can confiscate enough money to put up a great fight against the coronavirus and more. Another oligarch not at the table, the exiled Dmytro Firtash, owes billions of dollars for unpaid natural gas to state-owned Naftogaz. These billions are real money in an economy of only $150 billion. Instead of passing the hat and begging the oligarchs, Zelensky should allow real investigations of these untouchables. Ukraine will start winning when the oligarchs start losing and have their stranglehold over the nation broken.
