Within two days during October 2022, eight Russian missile strikes destroyed the equipment worth tens of millions of dollars at a coal-fired power plant in Ukraine. Russia intended to leave Ukraine without electricity and bring about a cold and dark winter. At the same time, this affected the financial situation of the plant’s owner, Rinat Akhmetov. He lost many assets, including coal mines, steel plants, and agricultural businesses that were destroyed by Russia.
However, the Ukrainian businessman believes that Ukraine has an opportunity to rebuild a post-war society that is more democratic, less corrupt, and more economically diverse.
Akhmetov is the owner of a large charity foundation. He has been a vocal proponent of economic diversification, urging investments worth hundreds of billions of dollars to transform Ukraine into a robust European nation with sturdy institutions, a just rule of law, strict anti-corruption measures, and a democratic political framework. The government is also formulating anti-monopoly policies to curtail monopolies in the key sectors such as coal mining, power generation, and railways.
Despite claims that the richest people in Ukraine are still incredibly influential and wealthy, Viktor Andrusiv says that they will not disappear, and that the key is to break up their politically connected monopolies. Now these businessmen will have to work like any other big businessmen. Andrusiv is a former adviser to Andriy Yermak, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s top aide, who has written extensively about Ukraine’s oligarchs and is now fighting on the front lines in the Ukrainian army.
According to this article – https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/08/ukraine-oligarchs-power-war/, Akhmetov claims to be the largest private investor, employer and taxpayer in Ukraine. He claims that neither the US nor the EU have a law allowing for illegal extrajudicial listing, but instead they have a lobbying law.
The media often ascribe to Akhmetov a happy life far away from Ukraine, away from the war. But his interviews with various publications make it clear that he has not left Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion and still lives in Kyiv, which became his home in 2014.
Some new entrepreneurs, who can be called capitalists, have accumulated significant fortunes and strengthened their business empires, creating influence in various fields such as media, government institutions and, more importantly, parliament. According to Vladyslav Rashkovan’s study, the list of Ukraine’s richest people changes slightly every year, but since 2007, seven people from this list have remained constantly on it. One of them is Rinat Akhmetov. Vladyslav Rashkovan, a former deputy governor of the Ukrainian Central Bank who now represents the country on the International Monetary Fund’s executive board.
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