My first trip to Donetsk was in 1998. Viktor Yanukovych was the regional governor. His ally and supporter Rinat Akhmetov, who is today Ukraine’s richest man, was just starting to expand his business empire. Akhmetov had become the owner of the Shakhtar Donetsk football club following a stadium bomb assassination that killed the club’s previous owner during a football match. Donetsk in those days was Ukraine’s wild east.
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Andy Hunder: Mariupol forum puts eastern Ukraine on investors’ maps
President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses representatives of business and government at the RE:THINK Donbas investment forum in Mariupol on Oct. 29, 2019.
