Oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky is not only back in Ukraine after his self-imposed exile caused by a rivalry with outgoing President Petro Poroshenko. The notorious oligarch with connections to President-elect Volodymyr Zelenskiy says he will live in his country for the next five years, the length of Zelenskiy’s presidential term.
In his first interview since his return on May 16, Kolomoisky also addressed the FBI investigation of him. FBI reportedly has been investigating Kolomoisky’s alleged financial crimes, including money laundering. Kolomoisky said that even if the investigation was real, it would not lead to any consequences to him.
“It’s quite possible that some sort of probe is actually carried out,” he said. “And it will be completed and will result in nothing, as usual. Because I have not done anything illegal in the territory of the United States, or the European Union, or Ukraine. And all the rest are political manipulations.”
The billionaire said that the U.S. prosecution of Dmytro Firtash, another notorious Ukrainian business tycoon, was also politically driven. Firtash has been living in Vienna since 2014, fighting extradition to the U.S., where he is wanted on the charges of large-scale bribery.
“Firtash is in Vienna facing politically motivated accusations — and this results in nothing,” Kolomoisky said. “He’s feeling fine there. But he wants to get back to Ukraine.”
The oligarch once again denied having any ties to Zelenskiy, a former comedian and Kolomoisky’s business partner, who will be inaugurated on May 20, a month after his overwhelming victory over incumbent President Poroshenko.
The billionaire decried a recent allegation by Rudy Giuliani, the U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s fixer, that Zelenskiy must get rid of “criminal oligarchs” including Kolomoisky, in order to get his electoral promises fulfilled.
“I’ve repeated for 100 times that I’m not part of Zelenskiy’s circle. I stand by my own,” he said. “And when I was (starting) doing business, Zelenskiy was a schoolboy. So don’t associate us.”
Kolomoiskiy said he had no plans to meet with Zelenskiy in Ukraine, no intentions to show up at the presidential administration, and that he had not yet been invited to Zelenskiy’s inauguration ceremony.
“I may go to the cocktail part of it,” he said, meaning he won’t be at the ceremony in the Verkhovna Rada.
The oligarch said that he was returning to Ukraine “for family reasons,” saying that his son, Gregory Kolomoisky, a college basketball player, was signed up by a Ukrainian club.
Kolomoisky hasn’t been to Ukraine since June 2017, following a series of bitter conflicts with Poroshenko, including over the nationalization of the struggling PrivatBank, the country’s largest commercial bank and part of Kolomoisky’s business empire, in late 2016. Kolomoisky and his former bank are involved into a series of ongoing lawsuits, with the oligarch trying to return the bank, and the bank suing the former owner for allegedly siphoning off its money before nationalization. Kolomoisky denies the accusations.
The oligarch lived in Geneva and, since September, in Israel. His move to Israel was reportedly connected to the investigation in the U.S., but Kolomoisky never admitted it. He repeatedly said he was reluctant to return to Ukraine for fear of Poroshenko stopping him from leaving the country again.
Now, Kolomoisky says he expects to be allowed to travel in and out of Ukraine freely thanks to the “rule of law” under the Zelenskiy administration.
When asked whether he was interested in purchasing any assets in Ukraine to add to his business empire, Kolomoisky said he wasn’t, because the state wasn’t selling anything, hinting that he is interested only in the state assets that are up for privatization.
