The agreement, signed on April 30, establishes a joint investment fund between Kyiv and Washington and grants the U.S. special access to projects developing Ukraine's natural resources.
Ukraine is considering moving away from the U.S. dollar and closer to the euro as a benchmark for the hryvnia, National Bank Governor Andrii Pyshnyi told Reuters.
The Atesh partisan group claims it disabled communication at several Russian military facilities when it allegedly destroyed equipment at a transformer substation in the village of Mogiltsy in Russia's Moscow Oblast.
Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash during a Bloomberg Television interview inside the Group DF offices in Vienna, Austria, on March 14, 2016. (Photo: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine announced on Aug. 15 that it had seized Hr 7.6 billion ($208 million) worth of assets from Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash as three more managers of companies under his Regional Gas Company have been charged with stealing gas from the state.
According to the report, charges were pressed against the chairman of the board of AT Kryvorizhgas for causing damages of $5.5 million, the chairman of the board of AT Volyngas over $3.5 million, and the chairman of the board of AT Chernihivgas over $6 million.
The Bureau received evidence of the three suspects stealing gas from the state transmission system in a scheme orchestrated by Firtash, the de facto head of the Regional Gas Company that runs the three named companies.
To compensate for the damages, the state confiscated the property of the three suspects worth $6.7 million and Firtash's assets worth $206 million.
So far, 15 people, including the Regional Gas Company's owner, have been charged in relation to the case, and heads of six regional gas companies are already in custody. Based on the investigation, the scheme caused the loss of state funds of more than $114 million in 2021.
Firtash, formerly a close associate of pro-Russian ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, accumulated much of his wealth by buying Russian gas and selling it in his home country.
U.S. prosecutors charged Firtash with racketeering and bribery in 2014 and he was briefly arrested in Austria before posting bail. The Ukrainian tycoon has so far avoided extradition from Austria's capital, where he resides.
Martin Fornusek is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. He has previously worked as a news content editor at the media company Newsmatics and is a contributor to Euromaidan Press. He was also volunteering as an editor and translator at the Czech-language version of Ukraïner. Martin studied at Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia, holding a bachelor's degree in security studies and history and a master's degree in conflict and democracy studies.
Martin Fornusek
