Kolomoisky promises cash rewards for fighting pro-Russian separatists

“We have decided to pay Hr 500,000 to the members of the Mariupol military unit that stood against the attack. We ask the unit commander to contact us. Or by the end of the day we will find you ourselves,” Dnipropetrovsk Deputy Governor Borys Filatov wrote on his Facebook page on April 17. 

Ukrainian National Guardsmen overnight on April 17 killed three Kremlin-backed militants and injured 13 more when a large armed group tried taking over their military base in Mariupol, Donetsk Oblast’s second largest city, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov stated on his Facebook page. 

Anyone who furthermore arrests a Kremlin-backed saboteur and passes him to the National Resistance Headquarters in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast will receive $10,000. Freeing any government building will lead to a $200,000 reward, disarming separatists of their weapons could to allow earn an additional $1,000-2,000, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Administration press officer Kateryna Shovkova told the Kyiv Post.

Moreover, Svoboda Party activist Oleksandr Aronets has published a photo of the Privatbank banner, which says: “$10,000 for a moskal (slang term for “Russian”). A profitable offer from Privatbank.” Kolomoisky owns Privatbank along with another billionaire businessman, Gennadiy Bogolyubov.

Kolomoisky has previously offered especially sharp criticism on Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Short-sized schizophrenic. He is absolutely inadequate, wholly insane. His messiahship, reviving the Russian Empire of 1913 or the USSR may push the world to a catastrophe,” the Dnipropetrovsk governor said about Putin during one of his first public appearances while in office on March 3.

The Russian leader did not leave Kolomoisky’s accusations without a reply.

“Instead of establishing a dialogue with these people (separatists), Kyiv has sent its people to take the positions of governors and regional managers. These are local oligarchs, billionaires,” Putin said during his April 17 press conference.

“People are very suspicious about the oligarchs and think that they have made their billions through exploitation of people and stealing the public property, and now they are being sent as administrators, regional managers,” the Russian president added.

He went on, “Of course, this became a reason for discontent. People started nominating leaders from their circle. What have authorities done to these leaders? Put them in jail. And this happens at a time when nationalist units are not disarming, but doing the opposite – they’ve started threatening with arms on the east. And people on the east have started taking arms.”

Besides, Putin accused Kyiv authorities in using tanks and military aircraft against the civil population.