“Black-and-white” Dmytro Firtash. And a shade of “gray”

“I decided to postpone my arrival to Ukraine... I deeply regret that the incumbent Ukrainian government took unprecedented steps and did everything to prevent my arrival,” businessman Dmytro Firtash said to explain the sudden change in his plans to return from Vienna. The statement was sent to the media on the eve of the announced but failed visit by the Federation of Employers of Ukraine, headed by the oligarch.

The businessman did not answer The Day’s request for information what Ukrainian officials and why acted to prevent his return. His press service reported that the official statement was the limit of “openness” which Firtash was capable of at the moment.

What happened in the information space in the past two days has made noticeable the fact that the news of Firtash’s return to Ukraine made many people here nervous. For an unknown reason, the State Aviation Service even closed the nation’s skies for chartered flights, canceling previously issued permits for arrival of foreign-registered private flights in Ukraine... And this alone raises many questions.

If the authorities wanted, as stated by Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov, to bring Firtash to justice, why did they put so much effort into preventing his arrival? Were not they afraid, perchance, that Firtash wanted to tell who else came to that meeting with him in Vienna? After all, we would like to remind our readers that former head of the Security Service of Ukraine Valentyn Nalyvaichenko hinted when speaking at Shuster LIVE talk show that not all names are known. “There were more of them,” he said in response to Serhii Leshchenko MP putting the number of participants at two or three. One more thing to consider: was Firtash’s return approved by his long-term partners in the gas business (and other dealings too), the partners who sit in the Kremlin? Their methods of silencing people who they see as dangerous under certain circumstances are well known. And if, say, the Kremlin opposed his move, what then could the important and urgent business be that forced Firtash to leave the safety of Vienna and return to Kyiv? Was it due to him no longer trusting the partners who run their joint business in Ukraine? On the other hand, if he, knowing what could await him here, still ventured to come back and announced it, why did he change his mind at the last moment? Maybe it was a “provocation” on Firtash’s part, aimed to grate on the nerves of some people in power, and then use the statements and actions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs as arguments favoring the theory of political persecution targeting him...

In short, Firtash’s failed arrival has left even more questions than his possible return.

WHAT HAPPENED ON THE EVE OF THE PLANNED ARRIVAL

After the announcement of Firtash’s return to Ukraine appeared in the media, Minister of Internal Affairs Avakov promised to have him arrested.

“According to Art. 597 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine and the UN Convention against Corruption ratified by Ukraine in 2006, the Prosecutor General’s Office will, in response to the relevant request from the US Justice Department, instruct the National Police of Ukraine to detain Dmytro Firtash for 72 hours, during which time a court order for 40-day arrest will be obtained,” Arsen Avakov posted on Facebook.

But has such a request been made? We do not know! Avakov’s post says nothing about it explicitly.

Let us note that the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ spokesman Artem Shevchenko reported in late November that his department conducted no criminal investigations which would name Firtash as a suspect. What there is the Ostchem case, in which he was summoned for questioning as a witness. So, as Shevchenko has clarified, the MIA has no legal basis to detain Firtash in the event of his return to Ukraine.

Another question arises, then: why did the minister of internal affairs make such a statement publicly? On what grounds might Firtash be arrested?

“MIA officers may detain him at the border without specific charges for 72 hours. During this time, the investigator has to go to court and present specific allegations of crime (making up a basis for criminal proceeding) committed in Ukraine (such as tax evasion, defrauding the government, and sham business). On this basis, the judge will choose a preventive measure (detention in prison, release on bail, personal recognizance). If no measure is chosen, they will have to release him,” senior partner of the Kravets & Partners law firm Rostyslav Kravets explained the procedure prescribed in the current legislation of Ukraine.

True, they might detain Firtash at the request of the US Justice Department. If there was one, we would like to emphasize here. However, they might not extradite him to the US, the lawyer emphasized.

“Of course, other nations may request extradition. Still, the criminal proceeding against such person shall be launched in Ukraine. In addition, Firtash is a citizen of Ukraine, and the norms of international law are such that no country in the world extradites its citizens without proof of guilt. Currently, no US court decision on this issue is known. There are only allegations of committing a crime. The documents must also be legalized, which requires an independent inquiry conducted in Ukraine. If they bypass this process, they can even arrest Arsenii Yatseniuk on Russian charges of taking part in mass executions in Chechnya (and we have a legal assistance treaty with Russia), for the grounds will be just as good,” the lawyer said ironically.

MINISTER OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS ARSEN AVAKOV TWEETED THIS PHOTO OF SWAT POLICEMEN PICTURED AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF THE BORYSPIL AIRPORT’S TERMINAL WITH AN IRONIC CAPTION IN RUSSIAN: “IT WILL SOON BE MIDDAY NOW, BUT FIRTASH IS NOT HERE... WHILE WE STILL AWAIT HIM”

Had Firtash decided to fly despite it all, he, according to Kravets, would have likely been arrested. He would spend 72 hours in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU)’s prison. Then the court would order him released on his own recognizance and promise to stay in Ukraine.

Why Firtash wants to return to Ukraine? According to a source close to the oligarch who was contacted by The Day, there are several reasons for it. The first is to regain control over his business empire and its main media asset, the Inter TV channel. Secondly, he needs to restore his political influence, both with his friendly MPs and his appointees in the Cabinet of Ministers. In this configuration, the Federation of Employers of Ukraine (FEU) occupies a special place as a platform for ongoing evaluation of the government’s actions and their impact on business. “This is why Yatseniuk wants to put his own man in place of Firtash at the FEU’s helm,” our source explained. Actually, it is for this reason that Firtash was to come back precisely on the day of the FEU congress, so as to put an end to this matter. On December 2, the media published many versions of reasons why the Ukrainian government would actively resist the arrival of “the Viennese prisoner.” Among the most popular, there are the arrival of US Vice President Joe Biden and the Verkhovna Rada vote on the Cabinet reshuffle, which is scheduled for December 11.

SIX “NUANCES”

Still, we think you will agree that it would be naive to believe that the answer to this seemingly simple question – who and why is afraid of Firtash’s return to Ukraine – can be found by considering only today’s political configurations. His figure and his business history prompt much wider circle of questions, and answers to them should be probably reconsidered these days... We tried to outline some of them by creating a formula of sorts, a “black-and-white” portrait of Firtash based on information gleaned from public sources.

Therefore, the perception of Ukrainian society today is that Firtash is a pro-Russian businessman. This perception has been formed due to him making a fortune from political connections. Gas trade was his specialty. It is unlikely that anyone could create a big business in this field in the late 1990s and early 2000s without support from the top leadership of Russia, Ukraine, and Turkmenistan.

Firtash explained his successes in gas business by his ability to start a regular business relationship and him personally coming to all corridors of power with gas projects. Emergence of gas intermediary RosUkrEnerho (RUE) was Firtash’s shadiest dealing, and one that prompted most public suspicion of his ties with Russia. However, this is subject of another article...

It is important to understand that the symbiosis between politics and business was not limited to Firtash. Over the past 25 years, the Ukrainian oligarchs’ club has been formed on this principle. The only question is who has grown on what raw material base, and under whose “firm leadership.”

Closeness to former president Viktor Yanukovych. It so happened that the years of his presidency saw Firtash’s chemical and titanium business empire growing rapidly. On the other hand, the public somehow fails to notice other allies and “friends” of the fugitive president, like former head of the Presidential Administration Serhii Liovochkin...

Relations with Semion Mogilevich. Firtash gave no public explanation for this. However, WikiLeaks released an account of Firtash’s conversation with US Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor, held on December 8, 2008: “He acknowledged ties to Russian organized crime figure Semion Mogilevich, stating he needed Mogilevich’s approval to get into business in the first place. He was adamant that he had not committed a single crime when building his business empire, and argued that outsiders still failed to understand the period of lawlessness that reigned in Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union...” With this explanation, a new question arises: who was to blame – Firtash or the Russian leadership, which only created the playing field and handed cards to players?

More generally, links with Mogilevich are a matter for a serious internal investigation. Former head of the SBU Valentyn Nalyvaichenko linked Oleksandr Turchynov’s short spell at the service’s helm in 2005 to the Mogilevich case. Even now, we have no clear answer on its fate: does it exist today or not?

Firtash was the first to criticize Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko over her 2009 gas contract with Gazprom.

Currently, Ukraine is trying to rewrite it, but to no avail. Later on, there was the famous affair of 11 billion cubic meters of gas, which was first taken by the government, and then returned by the court order.

Where did the Tymoshenko-Firtash confrontation start? “I did not touch her. It is she who was at war with me. It is unclear to me why. I had no joint business with her, I never divided money with her. We never crossed each other’s path...” Firtash said in an interview commenting on the reasons for the confrontation with the then prime minister.

However, it was only half-true. It was prime minister Tymoshenko who eliminated RosUkrEnerho from the business of Russian gas supplies to Ukraine, so Firtash was left with nothing. In the same informal conversation with the former US ambassador, as released by WikiLeaks, the Ukrainian businessman gave a lengthy explanation of the conflict. “He sees Tymoshenko as a clear threat to his business. Firtash defined Tymoshenko as an accomplished oligarch who had made deals with Moscow that would leave Ukraine vulnerable to Russian oligarchs in the future – something neither he nor Ukrainian billionaire and the Party of Regions backer Rinat Akhmetov could stand by and watch happen,” WikiLeaks quoted details of the oligarch’s meeting with the American ambassador. Meanwhile, Firtash explained Tymoshenko’s “hatred” for him in the same conversation by pointing out “Tymoshenko’s missed opportunity to develop her own RUE back in 2005, when she was Prime Minister for the first time.”

Firtash launched the Bukovyna Foundation to support small and medium businesses in Ukraine and provided funds for it to support start-ups.

In addition, he was one of the first to call on other oligarchs to create and financially support the Agency for the Modernization of Ukraine to restart the economy. Also, despite the crisis and stoppages at some chemical companies, he laid off no employees, continued to pay salaries and refused to sell his assets, though there were willing buyers. Why did he act this way? It was a policy of economic pragmatism. He understood that his company’s assets were worth something only if Ukraine switched to a new economic track and stayed afloat. This is a common interest for both big and small businesses, around which they can unite.

There has been public support for his “Ukrainian initiatives”: the Ukrainian studies program and scholarships at the University of Cambridge, the purchase of land for the construction of the monument to Holodomor victims in the US. However, was it purely patriotic motives that drove him to it, or was it a desire to create a positive image abroad there as well?

Of course, the business portrait of “black-and-white” Firtash is full of shades of gray... It is probably due to his “directional” uncertainty. From his actions, one cannot say with any confidence what he wants most – to stick to his business or keep playing politics. On the one hand, Firtash is a businessman. On the other, he is the head of the FEU. On the one hand, he stages an investment forum in London, on the other, he is linked with the Kremlin...

But this “uncertainty” is an issue for the Ukrainian big business as a whole. (Except for one who tried to break with it, and became a personal “enemy of the Kremlin”). Actually, it was this uncertainty that led to the tragedy. Having concentrated on their own interests to the exclusion of anything else, the oligarchs have in effect allowed the aggressor to grab bits of the Donbas and the entirety of Crimea.

Well, it is time to make a determined choice. Otherwise, they can lose the whole country...

The Day’s FACT FILE

The Forbes Top 100 of Richest People in Ukraine in 2014 ranked Firtash 8th, with the value of his Group DF estimated at 880 million dollars. By 2015, the businessman’s fortune decreased by almost three-fourths (!), falling to 270 million dollars. This fall, Firtash lost control of Vilnohirsky Mining and Metallurgical Plant and Irshansk Mining and Processing Plant, which mine and process titanium and zirconium ores. Naftohaz of Ukraine JSC has initiated the return of regional gas distributors, where Firtash is a shareholder, to the parent company’s control. The gas delivery issues have sent Rivneazot and Cherkasy Azot offline for six months already. Two more chemical plants (Sievierodonetsk Azot and Horlivka Concern Stirol) have been out of operation for a year and a half because of military operations in eastern Ukraine. Firtash-controlled Nadra Bank was labeled insolvent and then liquidated by the National Bank of Ukraine. He also lost sole control over Zaporizhia Titanium and Magnesium Plant (Firtash is now managing it in cooperation with the government). His remaining fully-owned working assets are Krymsky Titan (although he had to re-register it under Russian law), Ostchem Ukraine, Cherkasyhaz, and agricultural assets.