You're reading: Separatist leader hails relationship between Akhmetov and self-proclaimed republic

Oleksandr Borodai, the former prime minister of the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk (DPR), says that there is a reason why the port city of Mariupol was not taken by separatists in September, “when there were such opportunities”.

He says it was done to facilitate the business of Rinat Akhmetov, a Ukrainian billionaire whose assets are scattered around both government-controlled and separatist-controlled territories in the east of the county.

The only port, available for Akhmetov is in Mariupol,” Borodai said at the discussion club in Moscow, organized by Russian nationalist magazine “Sputnik and Pogrom”. The video from the meeting was posted online on March 26.

In the discussion that lasted more than an hour, Borodai implied that there is an agreement between the self-proclaimed republic and Akhmetov to allow him to keep his assets and run his businesses, in exchange for steady employment and wages for “the citizens of DPR”.

Akhmetov was less lucky in Crimea. In late February, the parliament of the peninsula nationalized the Ukrainian telecommunications company Vega, which was part of Akhmetov’s SCM holding. But his assets in Donbass are still his, and many of them continue to operate.

Mister Akhmetov, because in his time he was central to the Ukrainian politics and was the man who effectively informally controlled Ukraine, he benefits from the current state of affairs,” Borodai said, adding that he doesn’t know Akhmetov personally.

Akhmetov’s spokesman denied any allegations of cooperation with separatists. “SCM Group, all business-related and non-business assets of Rinat Akhmetov work solely within the legal framework of Ukraine and pay taxes to the Ukrainian budget,” said Elena Dovzhenko, Akhmetov’s spokeswoman.

Many rumors and factoids pursuing different kinds of provocations and manipulations are being planted in the public field regularly. So, I wish to state that neither Rinat Akhmetov nor businesses of SCM Group have or will ever comment on them,” she said.

In Borodai’s words, Akhmetov’s assets in separatist-controlled territories continue operating because they provide jobs and help to avoid social instability in the region.

According to Borodai, goods, produced at Akhmetov’s factories, can be exported only if there is an access to a Ukrainian port, as Europe considers authorities of the so-called DPR as terrorists. Many of the separatist leaders, including Borodai himself, are on the European sanctions list.

He says that if DPR decides to nationalize Akhmetov’s business, none of Russia’s powerful oligarchs would help the so-called republic to sell the products.

What would that mean for DPR? Hunger. Real hunger,” he said, pointing at the fact that Akhmetov’s Humanitarian Center provides humanitarian aid to the region. “DPR practically lives of that aid.”

Dovzhenko, however, has denied that Akhmetov’s aid benefits the separatists. “The Center distributes all the humanitarian help in Donbas only to the most vulnerable civilians: the elderly, the disabled, children and mothers of many children,” she said. “I wish to underscore that the principle of Rinat Akhmetov and the team of his Humanitarian Center is to work transparently, openly and according to the laws of Ukraine.”