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Four of them are lawmakers. Poroshenko leads the 27-member European Solidarity faction in parliament. Medvedchuk and Lovochkin co-chair the pro-Russian 44-member Opposition Platform. Novinsky is an independent lawmaker.
Ex-lawmaker and Kyiv Post columnist Sergii Leshchenko, who has been a prominent anti-corruption activist, published his own list of those that could be included. He added the names of poultry tycoon Yuriy Kosiuk, fugitive agricultural mogul Oleh Bakhmatyuk, and the family of Oleksandr and Halyna Hereha, who control Ukraine’s largest home improvement store chain, Epicentr.
While those four aren’t widely known as media owners, at least three of them have media assets. Bakhmatyuk owns local media in Ivano-Frankivsk, while the Herehas reportedly control a local TV station in Khmelnytskiy, also a Western Ukrainian city, the Kyiv Post reports. Firtash and Lovochkin co-own Inter, a TV channel popular with pro-Russian audiences in Ukraine. Pinchuk owns the popular TV channels ICTV, STB, and Novy.
In another sign that the tide is turning and Zelenskiy has turned on his former mentor, in early 2021, the government replaced the management of Centrenergo, allegedly to eliminate Kolomoisky’s influence. On April 22, the oligarch’s offices in central Kyiv were searched over suspected embezzlement of $8mn from Centrenergo. Before that, in January, one of Kolomoisky’s top allies in parliament, lawmaker Oleksandr Dubinsky, was kicked out of Zelenskiy’s party faction, the Kyiv Post reports.
Rinat Akhmetov is Ukraine’s richest oligarch and has so far kept his head down and continues to flourish under Zelenskiy. Amongst the assets Akhmetov controls via his SCM holding is the DTEK energy company and Metinvest steel and mining holding. Both have benefited from sweetheart deals with the state-owned railway monopolist Ukrzaliznytsia, which transports iron ore and coal at below-market prices that is a drain on the state.
But Akhmetov’s businesses are also in the cross hairs and the Rada recently drafted a bill that would raise cheap iron ore resource tax that will hurt Akhmetov’s businesses, although as Akhmetov controls the largest fraction in the Rada getting the law passed won’t be easy. The new taxes will also hike costs on Ferrexpo.
2.2 Russia issues 600,000 passports to breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk regions
Russia accelerated the issue of Russian passports to residents of the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine eastern region of Donbas, Ukrinform reported on May 12.
Russia has already issued an estimated 500,000 passports to the locals on a voluntary basis in the region held by Kremlin-backed separatist rebels that are fighting an undeclared war with Ukraine.
10 UKRAINE Country Report XXXX 2018 www.intellinews.com