You're reading: Financial Times: Kyiv moots Privatbank deal with Kolomoisky despite $5.5 billion scandal

Financial Times: Kyiv moots Privatbank deal with Kolomoisky despite $5.5 billion scandal

By Financial Times.

Published Sept. 17, 2019. Updated Sept. 17 at 8:13 pm

Billionaire oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, after living much of ex-President Petro Poroshenko's term in self-imposed exile, has reappeared under President Volodymyr Zelensky. He attended the 16th annual Yalta European Strategy conference on Sept. 13 in Kyiv's Mystetskyi Arsenal.

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Ukraine’s prime minister has said Kyiv is seeking a “compromise” with billionaire oligarch Igor Kolomoisky over a $5.5bn banking scandal, a move that risks alienating the western backers of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s new government.

Oleksiy Honcharuk told the FT that the president wanted to reach a settlement with Mr. Kolomoisky over the 2016 collapse of Ukraine’s largest lender Privatbank, which Kyiv nationalized amid allegations of staggering fraud.