Igor Kolomoysky emerged from the rough-and-tumble 1990s with one of Ukraine’s largest business empires and a reputation for ruthlessness. Having built PrivatBank into Ukraine’s largest bank, he plundered it for billions in an elaborate scheme that RT sheds new light on after examining hundreds of pages of court documents. The Maidan events of 2014 proved a watershed moment for the country and the man. Kolomoysky ended up caught in a whirlwind of far-right militants, rising Western scrutiny, and a dramatic denouement with his bank – after which he fled abroad the same night. Not one to give up, though, Ukraine’s most notorious oligarch had a plan for revenge and its name was: Vladimir Zelensky.
Riding disillusion in the post-Maidan leaders, Zelensky swept into power on a media-savvy campaign and a lot of help from Kolomoysky. A month later, the oligarch himself returned to Ukraine and set to work settling scores. Zelensky, meanwhile, soon ran amok. He “tricked Putin” in Paris, ruining hopes for peace in Donbass, and setting the stage for the fateful events of 2022. Caught between Western pressure and his benefactor’s menacing presence, Zelensky tried to play both sides until events forced his hand. Yet the oligarch’s downfall merely left an open niche into which strode the shadowy figure of Timur Mindich, a Kolomoysky-made man who would reconstitute his former boss’s corrupt patronage network.
