Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk had a busy few days in London, meeting officials and signing various agreements, including a 900 million euro deal with European investment banks to finance the building and repair of Ukraine’s neglected roads.
But other issues lingered in the background. The prime minister spent much of his time responding to widespread concerns relating to state-owned PrivatBank, its future and the worrisome influence of Ukrainian oligarchs.
After a Nov. 22 speech at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, commonly known as Chatham House, the 35-year-old politician attempted to assure his London audience that the new government in Kyiv was independent of powerful oligarchs, would obey the rule of law and can pursue independent policy and reform goals.
PrivatBank is a particular point of contention in London, where the bank is suing its former owners, the oligarchs Ihor Kolomoisky and Hennadiy Boholyubov for at least $3 billion in alleged losses.
PrivatBank — Ukraine’s largest lender, co-owned by Kolomoisky and Boholyubov until its nationalization in 2016 — claims a total of $5.5 billion was looted from the bank into offshore holdings. The Ukrainian central bank and Ministry of Finance said the bank faced insolvency without a bailout financed by Ukrainian taxpayers.
Kolomoisky seeks the return of his bank, or compensation for its nationalization, and he thinks he is going to get it: “The International Monetary Fund knows that PrivatBank will be returned (to me) in the near future,” he told the Kyiv Post during a Nov. 21 phone call.
On Nov. 22, Honcharuk disputed this in London and again distanced his government from the oligarch’s statements on the bank.
“We have a very clear understanding, from my president, in the government that the PrivatBank case is indicative of Ukraine for the whole world. So, of course, we stand that neither this bank nor the money from it should be returned to previous shareholders,” he said, as reported by the Ukrainian language service of Voice of America.
The government also “has strategies in place and we are ready for any development,” the PM added.
“The government of Ukraine, and the president’s team will do our best to make this example a signal that everything has changed in Ukraine,” he said.
At the same time, the prime minister acknowledged that oligarchs have a loud voice in Ukraine and that it echoes abroad through the media.
“This only shows that they want to appear influential, and in fact their influence is diminished,” Honcharuk said.
Although no judgment has been passed on Kolomoisky or Boholyubov, the courts have already recognized that “fraud on an epic scale” took place at the bank, which was allegedly the victim of a years-long scheme of fraudulent insider lending. Kolomoisky and Boholyubov have repeatedly denied wrongdoing.
Read also: Investigation: UK accounting firms tied to alleged Kolomoisky fraud
