Even though this issue should have been dealt with much earlier, the process started only now mainly because Kolomoisky crossed the line in using public resources for his own enrichment.
Besides, the political pressure young lawmakers (and former civic activists) initiated also brought its result. It eventually influenced public opinion on what it means to use public resources for enrichment.
Moreover, the West stepped in, as they don’t want American and European taxpayers to support Ukraine with their money if the Ukrainian government fails to take its own money back from the oligarchs.
The concerns of Western governments are understandable.
Ukraine keeps reducing pensions and salaries and introducing new taxes, while the government fails to make steps towards getting money back from the tycoons. Instead, the government looks into the pockets of citizens.
Ukraine’s budget still lacks Hr 1.8 billion ($720 million) in dividends that Kolomosiky failed to pay to other shareholders of state-owned Ukrnafta company. Kolomoisky said he would “never pay the dividends.” (Editor’s note: The state owns 50 percent, plus one share in this oil extracting company, but it has been managed by Kolomoisky’s team for years).
If the country could use the money to buy equipment for the army, Ukraine’s fighters would be equipped much better now. This is something that shatters the idea of Kolomoisky as a patriot who saved Ukraine.
He violated the law and his oath as a government official.
Besides, he violated the law that prohibits dual citizenship, because he actually has three, not even two passports – Ukrainian, Israeli and Cypriot ones. He is officially registered as resident in one of the resort areas of Tel Aviv. The oligarch mostly lives between Geneva and Kyiv and he appeared in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast once in the last few months. He had been keeping the region under control remotely.
It’s unlikely that the so-called Dnipropetrovsk People’s Republic will emerge. Kolomoisky won’t destabilize the situation there. If Kolomoisky tries to create such a republic, he could be charged with encroachment on the territorial integrity of the country.
Besides, citizens saw what kind of problems their neighbors have been facing in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics, and are weary of separatism.
Besides, the dialogue shouldn’t be over how many more state companies Kolomoisky should get in order to secure Dnipropetrovsk Oblast from Russian aggression. But rather the debate should be what will happen to him next. Will he flee the country or go to jail to face punishment for all of his crimes. There are enough grounds to think that Kolomoisky violated the criminal code.
Back in 2005, Kolomoisky was suspected in the attempted murder of Sergei Karpenko, a lawyer who refused to contribute to the oligarch’s attempt to gain control over the Dneprospetsstal, a steel producer.
Igor Sholodko, a former investigator with the Prosecutor General’s Office, opened and then closed the criminal case against Kolomoisky on suspicion of murder that same year. Solodko was killed on Nov. 30 while defending the Donetsk airport from Russian forces.
The case was dropped after Prosecutor General Svyatoslav Piskun was allegedly paid a bribe. It was closed also because Kolomoisky’s ally and now deputy governor, Sviatoslav Oliynyk, managed to get the charges dropped. Oliynyk appealed to the local Dnipropetrovsk court where Kolomoisky supposedly had a connection, even though only the Kyiv-based Pechersk district court had enough rights to conduct this kind of trial.
Sholodko then gave up his work for the General Prosecutor’s Office.
However, last year another tycoon – billionaire Viktor Pinchuk – filed a lawsuit in the London High Court against Kolomoisky, demanding the return of shares of the Kryvy Rih Iron Ore Combine worth some $1.5 billion. Pinchuk accused the defendants of failing to fulfill contracts.
At the same time, Sholodko was mobilized to the army by Dnipropetrovsk military commissariat, even though he lived in the central Ukrainian city of Zhytomyr at that time. Before Sholodko made it to the army, he contacted Oliynyk in Dnipropetrovsk.
All these episodes might be coincidences, but very suspicious ones.
Regardless of them, Kolomoisky’s crimes as well as the crimes of other oligarchs should be punished.
Serhiy Leshchenko is a former investigative journalist who is now a member of parliament from President Petro Poroshenko’s bloc.
