Shortly before the May election of President Volodymyr Zelensky, economists, banking experts and Ukraine watchers began telling journalists to keep an eye on what will happen at the National Bank of Ukraine and PrivatBank. They tried to prepare us for what they thought was coming.
Former NBU Governor Valeria Gontareva was and still is the most outspoken in this area. She has regularly and accurately predicted challenges that the central bank may likely face under a Zelensky administration. Before Zelensky’s election, Gontareva insisted that a close eye be kept on state-owned PrivatBank, formerly owned by oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, a former business associate of Zelensky. She nationalized the bank in 2016 when auditors found a suspicious $5.5 billion hole in its books. She and her team shuttered 86 more banks, which were Ponzi schemes or shells.
They made plenty of enemies in the process. Many had warned that the NBU mandate and its independence could be threatened and that PrivatBank may come under attack if a Kolomoisky-backed Zelensky took power. They also warned of more politically motivated court cases against the NBU, the Finance Ministry and PrivatBank, as well as paid-for protests designed to threaten, distract and destabilize. Gontareva predicted harassment of bankers, former officials and their families. She warned it may get ugly.
But few were prepared for how bad things would turn after a revenge-driven Kolomoisky returned to Ukraine. Thugs have burned down Gontareva’s home and torched her son’s car. Police have raided her Kyiv apartment on dubious and allegedly politically motivated grounds. In London, where she lives in a type of self-imposed exile, she was mysteriously struck by a car and badly injured. Police claim they are investigating, but as is often the case in Ukraine, justice is evasive.
Things also look bleak for PrivatBank and the NBU, which have repeatedly warned that their staff, and now their families, are the focus of a campaign of terror, intimidation, and harassment. Kolomoisky-backed protesters have gathered outside PrivatBank headquarters in the city of Dnipro and attempted to storm it.
They have done the same at the NBU in Kyiv. Things have gotten so out of control that PrivatBank evacuated 300 of its staff and their CEO was hospitalized with a reported heart attack amid the protests.
Now Kolomoisky’s alleged foot soldiers have also set up camps close to the family homes of NBU Governor Yakiv Smolii and his first deputy, Kateryna Rozhkova.
They briefly threatened to storm the Dnipro hospital where the CEO of PrivatBank is recovering. Social media is awash with threats and the situation is a tinderbox awaiting a match.
What is required for the government and law enforcement to finally do something other than watch? What will make them take the threats, harassment and intimidation against the NBU and PrivatBank seriously?
We hope it will not be serious violence that finally spurs the law into action. PrivatBank has been turned around and is one of the country’s largest taxpayers. The NBU is rightly respected for the service it did for Ukraine. Zelensky can no longer simply shrug off the corrosive campaign that is being waged by his old pal Kolomoisky. He cannot claim his hands are tied — he must act. In the meantime, we must all stand with the NBU.
