He also befriended Manafort, did business with Russia’s state-owned gas behemoth, and became a target of Barack Obama’s Justice Department. He’s been a constant presence in the background of the story of Russian influence in the American elections-but now, he says American influence on Ukraine is the real story. In recent years, Firtash has found himself at the heart of Ukrainian political fights with geopolitical consequences. The mogul, whose estimated net worth was $500 million in 2014, made his fortune after the Soviet Union’s collapse. He told The Daily Beast he moved from Ukraine to Moscow in the early days after the USSR fell to expand his food business. After making a deal with a group of Turkmen he met at the Rossiya Hotel-a now-demolished structure he described as “Soviet nice”-he traveled to Turkmenistan to try to get them to pay up. According to Firtash, the Turkmen told him they had very little cash but lots of gas.
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SMARTS CROSSWORD HOW TOĪnd since Moscow was not centrally managing the gas industry, they weren’t sure how to distribute and sell it. His gas work also resulted in thick business ties with the Kremlin, including a 50-50 partnership with Russia’s state-backed Gazprom to sell gas in Ukraine.įirtash said that’s how he got started as a gas trader-squeezing his foot into a door that opened to fabulous wealth, extraordinary political power, and, ultimately, indictment. Russia-watchers often cite this as evidence Firtash is a Moscow front. Firtash, meanwhile, claimed Gazprom courted his business because they wanted his expertise in the Central Asian gas trade. “I’m acquainted with him, I’ve seen him, I know him, but I never had business or anything else with him,” Firtash continued, adding that it “wouldn’t be appropriate” for him to say what gas company Mogilevich worked for.įirtash’s acquaintance with Mogilevich drew public interest in 2010, when WikiLeaks posted a tranche of stolen State Department cables. One cable, from the American embassy in Kiev, detailed a conversation Firtash had with then-Ambassador Bill Taylor. According to the cable, Firtash claimed that he’d needed Mogilevich’s approval to get started in the gas trade.
According to Firtash, the cable was a lie.įirtash said he didn’t even seek out the State Department meeting that ultimately outed him as an acquaintance of Mogilevich. Instead, he said, a friend persuaded him to overcome his initial reservations and meet with the U.S.
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