Privacy is essential when you're an oligarch. But so is well-timed publicity. So when Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine's richest man and a born-and-bred Donetsk loyalist, waded into a confrontation with pro-Russian separatists occupying the region's government headquarters, he made sure tape was running. "Put away your emotions!" a voice resembling Akhmetov's can be heard saying in an April 7 recording later aired by Ukrainian media. "I understand that your souls ache. All of you whose souls ache for Donbas are my brothers. Why? Because I live here. I walk here. I breathe the air here, the same as you."
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: In Donetsk, a ‘self-made’ oligarch learns to play nicely with others
Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine's richest man, no matter how the standoff ended, was on record as putting himself on the side of peace and national unity.
