Dmytro Firtash
Dmytro Vasylovych Firtash is a Ukrainian businessman who heads the board of directors of Group DF. He was highly influential during the Yushchenko administration and the Yanukovych administration. As a middleman for the Russian natural gas giant Gazprom and with connections to the Kremlin, Firtash funneled money into the campaigns of pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine. Firtash obtained his position with the agreement of Russian president Vladimir Putin and, according to Firtash, Russian organized crime boss Semion Mogilevich.
His many roles during the Yushchenko administration included: presidency of the Federation of Employers of Ukraine, an interest association of industrial enterprises that he chairs; chairmanship of the National Tripartite Social and Economic Council ; co-chairmanship of Domestic and Foreign Investors Advisory Council under the Ministry of Education, Science, Youth and Sports of Ukraine; and membership in the Committee for Economic Reforms under the President of Ukraine.
The United States Justice Department has characterized Firtash as an "upper-echelon of Russian organized crime." He was arrested by Austrian authorities in March 2014 and has since been in Vienna fighting extradition to the United States, where he is under federal indictment for an alleged bribery scheme. American attorneys Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing, associates of then-US president Donald Trump and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, were hired by Firtash in July 2019 to fight his extradition, as Giuliani sought information in Ukraine to damage Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
Early life
Firtash was born on 2 May 1965 in Bohdanivka, Zalishchiky Raion, Ukraine, Soviet Union. His father Vasyl was a driver and his mother Mariya Hryhorivna had two degrees and worked at a livestock farm and then a sugar mill as an accountant. Since the 1990s, the village has been called Synkiv.Business career and assets
Firtash began his business career almost immediately after completing his military service. He founded a trading company in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, eventually moving to Moscow in the early 1990s.In 2007, a private international group of companies, Group DF was formed to consolidate Firtash's business assets in different sectors. Presently, Group DF incorporates assets in the chemical industry, energy sector and real estate, and this consolidation effort is still underway.
In 2008, Firtash was involved with a firm owned by Paul Manafort in a $895 million project to redevelop the Drake Hotel in New York City into a spa and luxury mall to be called Bulgari Tower. According to court records, Firtash's firm had planned to invest $100 million in the project. The deal was never finalized.
In 2010, Firtash launched an effort towards consolidation of the Ukrainian nitrogen business. From September 2010 to September 2011, Firtash acquired ownership in 'Concern STIROL', 'Severodonetsk Production Association Azot' and 'Cherkassy Azot'. In just over a year, the joint marketing strategy of the four fertilizer manufacturers owned by Firtash substantially strengthened its domestic market position.
Firtash is co-owner of RosUkrEnergo and controls much of the Ukrainian titanium industry. He gained control of former state-owned titanium assets across Ukraine in 2004 and also owns several chemical plants under his Group DF which he formed in 2007. In May 2011, Firtash took over Nadra Bank. Nadra Bank had gone into default in 2009, but it has since restructured its foreign debt with significant write-offs.
Firtash became one of the leading investors in the power sector and chemical industry in Central and Eastern Europe. His plants and companies are present in Ukraine, Germany, Italy, Cyprus, Tajikistan, Switzerland, Hungary, Austria and Estonia.
Firtash was elected President of the Joint Representative Body, a joint representative agency of employers at the national level, on 29 November 2011.
Firtash bought back 100 percent of InterInter Media Group Limited from Valeriy Khoroshkovskyi on 1 February 2013, for his GDF Media Limited. Firtash had sold various channels to Khoroshkovskyi's U.A. Inter Media Group Ltd in June 2007 while consolidating other business interests. Firtash owns seven television channels as well as an influential Kyiv-based Ukrainian News Agency. Firtash is also cited as having part ownership of SCL Group and thus Cambridge Analytica through various shell companies, by the U.S. documentary Active Measures, in its breakdown of the Russian–U.S. relationship before and after the 2016 election.
In April 2014, Firtash stated that despite the difficult conditions of doing business during Ukraine's political crisis, Ostchem enterprises, part of Ostchem Holding The investments directed to the development and modernization of Ostchem enterprises allowed significant increases in the production capacities of Rivne Azot, Stirol Concern, and Crimea soda plant in the first quarter of 2014.
In February 2014, the British Ministry of Defence sold the disused Brompton Road tube station to Firtash, who planned to convert the site into residential flats. the property remained undeveloped because Firtash "could not travel from Vienna to London due to a U.S. extradition request."
On 18 June 2021 the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine imposed sanctions against Firtash because allegedly his titanium business aided the "military-industrial complex of the Russian Federation."
On 4 August 2021 the previously Firtash-owned Zaporizhzhia Titanium-Magnesium Plant was returned to state ownership. The Commercial Court of Zaporizhzhia Oblast ruled that Firtash had not fulfilled its 2013 obligations to the State Property Fund of Ukraine to invest 110 million US dollars in the modernization of the plant.
At the end of May 2022 26 Ukrainian regional natural gas distribution companies, most of which were controlled by Firtash, were transferred to the management of a daughter company of Naftogaz. Firtash's regional distribution companies delivered 70% of natural gas to its customers in Ukraine.
Business development initiatives
Firtash unified the employers' organizations of Ukraine into a single powerful association, the Federation of Employers of Ukraine, which he presided over from November 2011 to September 2016. The FEU membership includes companies and enterprises collectively generating 70 percent of Ukraine's GDP. It represents employers' interests in the economic, social and labor relations with the government and trade unions at the national level.In 2012, Firtash initiated the establishment of a venture investment fund, Bukovina, aimed at supporting small enterprises. It has become Ukraine's first investment fund offering preferential lending support to small businesses in all sectors of the economy.
In October 2013, Firtash was introduced into the state commission of cooperation with the World Trade Organization by the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych.
Politics
In spring 2002, Firtash ran for parliament as a member of the all-Ukrainian political association Women for the Future, under the patronage of Lyudmila Kuchma, a wife of Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. The party won 2.11% of the vote, below the 3% threshold required for representation in the Ukrainian parliament. In 2010, Firtash was involved in financing Viktor Yanukovych's presidential campaign. Firtash stated that he sincerely believed that Yanukovych would learn from the events of 2003–2004 and adopt different policies. Since 2011, they have been at odds on questions of public policy. In 2011, Firtash said that Yushchenko had planned good reforms, but Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko had not allowed him to implement them.In March 2014, on behalf of the business circles of Ukraine, Firtash addressed Aleksandr Shokhin, the Head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, and the wider business community concerning the situation in the political arena and urged Russian businessmen to stop the war between Russia and Ukraine.
On 3 April 2014, Firtash announced that he hoped the forthcoming presidential elections would overcome the chaos in Ukraine and strengthen the country on the international political scene. He said: "I will not allow for my reputation to be ruined by those who are driven by political motivations and are not interested in Ukraine and its people". On 11 April 2014, he urged big Ukrainian business to act according to the logic of "economic patriotism" and buy up goods in domestic companies.
A profile piece published about Firtash by the BBC on 30 April 2014, stated that because he acted as a go-between in the gas trade between Turkmenistan and Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine prime minister at the time made hostile attempts to push Firtash and his firm out of Ukraine-Russia gas control negotiations in 2009.
In an interview given to the BBC in May 2014, Firtash protested his innocence, denied paying bribes and any links to organized crime. He reiterated his belief that he is a pawn in the geo-political struggle between the United States and Russia.
In September 2016, after serving as president of the FEU for five years, Firtash resigned the position of the FEU President.
While in Austria fighting extradition to the U.S., Firtash gave an interview to his own Inter TV channel in which he called for Ukrainian business to unite in support of the state to help it to overcome the economic crises. He also promised to provide funds to support the Ukrainian army. In April, Ostchem enterprises, part of Firtash's group of companies, began supporting Ukraine's military forces.
Charity
As of 2014 Firtash was one of Ukraine's largest philanthropists per Top-Ukraine.com, providing systemic support to education, theaters, museums, historical, cultural and humanitarian projects and as of 2011, to science,In 2008, the University of Cambridge in the UK established a Cambridge Ukrainian Studies program with his financial support. In 2012, another charity initiative by Firtash enabled the establishment of Cambridge–Ukraine studentships, that made it possible for eligible students from Ukraine to seek a master's degree at the University of Cambridge. As of 2014, Firtash has been a member of the Guild of Cambridge Benefactors, which recognizes major benefactors of over £1 million to the University and Cambridge Colleges. After Firtash's arrest, human rights organizations criticized the university for accepting the funds.
In 2014, Firtash financed the construction of the Ukrainian Catholic University campus in the city of Lviv.
In 2011, Firtash made a sizable contribution to construction of the Holy Trinity Cathedral at the Holy Ascension Monastery in the village of Bancheny, Chernivtsi region. His support was recognized by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow who awarded Firtash with the Order of Venerable Serafim of Sarov, 2nd Degree.