Victor Pinchuk has kept a low profile while his money, media, and Western connections continue to work for him<\/p>\n
Late August brought news that the Victor Pinchuk Foundation is partnering with America\u2019s prestigious Yale University to launch an international leadership development program for Ukrainian veterans of the NATO proxy war against Russia. Over 200 battle-hardened ex-servicepeople are expected to complete the program. It was a rare media appearance for Victor Pinchuk, Ukraine\u2019s second-richest oligarch behind the\u00a0notorious Rinat Akhmetov, with personal wealth estimated at $2.8 billion. Pinchuk has remained largely in the shadows throughout the proxy war. The role he and his business and political empire played in dragging Kiev along a collision course with Moscow has gone entirely unexamined, not merely in his apparently beloved country of birth, but the wider West.
\nIn a sense though, the Yale leadership development program is a perfect manifestation of everything Pinchuk represents. Over 200 battle-hardened Ukrainian veterans are expected to complete the program, and senior figures at the university, including the dean, are apparently salivating at the prospect of the \u201csystematic, long-term initiative,\u201d explicitly designed to create an elite class of alumni who will \u201cplay an important role in Ukraine\u2019s recovery and development.\u201d Students will learn \u201chistory, economics, political science, leadership and the practice of global affairs,\u201d in a course \u201cworthy of their heroism,\u201d allowing Ukrainian veterans to apply Yale-approved \u201cleadership skills\u201d in \u201ctheir professional fields, local communities and Ukraine more broadly.\u201d
\nYale University was ranked first among US\u00a0institutions of\u00a0higher education, and second globally, in a survey in February published by Time Magazine. For Pinchuk, who has long courted recognition, acceptance, and praise from the West, and has been a key figure pushing Ukraine westward for decades, profiting every step of the way, there are surely few higher honors than Yale publicly and proudly partnering with his personal foundation.
\nBut the leadership development program is also an absolutely classic Pinchuk operation. He pioneered a tactic known as \u201cinvisible appointments.\u201d By infiltrating his allies into positions of influence within Ukrainian state ministries and industrial enterprises, Pinchuk ensures decisions are consistently made benefiting his bottom line, without him needing to personally involve himself in local politics too obviously.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
The Oligarch Part 3: How Ukraine\u2019s richest man rose as bodies fell \u2013 and became too powerful to touch<\/p>\n
As RT\u2019s The Oligarch series has shown, historically, it doesn\u2019t pay for Ukraine\u2019s ultra-wealthy classes to take sides, and the West\u2019s proxy war on Russia has imposed ever-stricter and constantly changing \u2018rules\u2019 by which they are expected to play. If they don\u2019t fall foul of the US-funded National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), the troubled administration of Vladimir Zelensky could turn on them at any moment \u2013 whether for political reasons, or personal enrichment. The Yale University program not only represents a pipeline of fearsome future Ukrainian leaders who owe a personal debt to Pinchuk and can become \u201cinvisible appointments\u201d in the future, it also promotes his personal brand in the US, right when the extremist regime he helped install is facing collapse.
\nHow did Pinchuk get so filthy rich?
\nIn Western media profiles over the years, Pinchuk has keenly emphasized his humble origins. Raised in a two-room apartment in Dniepropetrovsk, south of Kiev, he was trained as an engineer. In 1990, as the Soviet Union teetered on collapse and capitalist economics began tearing through the USSR\u2019s republics, Pinchuk spied an opportunity to play middleman as Western countries started sizing up Ukraine\u2019s vast riches, so founded engineering consulting firm Interpipe. Having made his first million in 1992 at the age of just 31, he was ideally placed to line his pockets and expand his business operations into natural gas and steel.\u00a0Thereafter, Pinchuk\u2019s \u2018invisible appointments\u2019 approach began to take shape.
\nMarrying the president\u2019s daughter greatly assisted Pinchuk\u2019s ability to secretly infiltrate government ministries. In 1997, he left his wife to begin dating Elena Kuchma, the daughter of Leonid Kuchma, who led Ukraine from July 1994 to January 2005. Almost immediately, rumors began circulating in the country and wider region that Pinchuk was receiving privileged access to deals, completely unavailable to people unconnected to the Kuchma dynasty. He even became an MP in 1998, a position he held for almost a decade. It was not until June 2004 that Pinchuk\u2019s nepotistic dealings became widely scrutinized, and only then because his corrupt alliance with the Kuchma clan was preventing Western oligarchs from enriching themselves in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
That month, Kryvorizhstal, one of the world\u2019s largest steel plants, was sold to Rinat Akhmetov and Viktor Pinchuk. Despite their bid being half that offered by an international consortium led by US Steel, the terms were rigged to ensure only local, well-connected oligarchs could profit. The BBC said the sale sent a \u201cdanger signal to foreign investors,\u201d and lambasted the tendency for Kuchma to award lucrative contracts to his allies, friends, and family as \u201cone of the ongoing problems of Ukraine\u2019s privatisation programme.\u201d\u00a0The Western-directed Orange Revolution later that year removed Kuchma, installing Viktor Yushchenko, who was no less corrupt \u2013 but at least forced Pinchuk to compete with foreigners for a slice of Kiev\u2019s pie.
\nWhat doesn\u2019t Pinchuk like to talk about publicly?
\nDespite Pinchuk\u2019s intimate involvement with the Kuchma family, he amazingly wasn\u2019t tainted by association, and his fortunes in every way only improved after the Orange Revolution. Never have questions been asked about whether criminal methods other than nepotism assisted his success. However, Pinchuk himself apparently ended up on the wrong end of Ukraine\u2019s post-1991 culture of gangsterism, at a very early stage in his career. Oligarchs flourish in an environment attaching local organized crime politicians and big business at the hip. As Forbes magazine reported in March 2014, \u201cthose who succeeded\u201d in the country at the time \u201cneeded more than friends and brains. They needed survival skills.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Call of corruption: What you should know about Ukraine\u2019s billion-dollar scam industry milked by Zelensky\u2019s government<\/p>\n
Pinchuk was kidnapped in 1996 by people he\u2019d never seen before, who arrived at his mother\u2019s house to celebrate her 60th birthday, before handcuffing and black bagging him at gunpoint. He was held for two days, then released after negotiating to pay $2 million for his freedom. Pinchuk refused to offer details of his ordeal beyond \u201cI stayed alive\u201d to Forbes, pleading \u201cI still can\u2019t talk about this.\u201d To get and stay rich in Ukraine then as now required oligarchs to invest in personal security apparatuses, often in conjunction with local mafia elements and crooked intelligence agents and police old and new.
\nIn November 2000, two months after Ukrainian journalist Georgiy Gongadze went missing, audio recordings of Kuchma supposedly discussing plans to have the reporter murdered captured by his bodyguard became public. Pinchuk\u2019s Labor Party of Ukraine commissioned private security firm Kroll to analyze the recordings, which concluded they had been tampered with. Meanwhile, Fakty \u2013 also owned by Pinchuk, and the country\u2019s largest newspaper at the time \u2013 published stories daily claiming Gongadze was actually alive and had been spotted in different parts of Ukraine or abroad, while also contradictorily accusing the mafia of being behind his killing, and fabricating the incriminating recordings of Kuchma. In truth, Gongadze was dead, and his murder remains officially unsolved today.
\nStill, Pinchuk\u2019s propaganda war to defend his father-in-law didn\u2019t end there. A slanted \u2018documentary\u2019 on the Gongadze scandal produced by Financial Times correspondent Charles Clover with funding from an unknown source alleged the furore was concocted by the West to interfere in Ukrainian politics. The film was broadcast repeatedly on Pinchuk\u2019s ICTV in the leadup to the country\u2019s 2002 parliamentary elections. In 2015 though, the oligarch was quick to accuse his rival, Igor Kolomoisky, of murders in a costly UK High Court legal battle over a disputed business deal. Pinchuk initially provided detailed accounts of Kolomoisky\u2019s liberal use of violence to expand his business empire. The judge ruled the accusations immaterial to the legal battle, which was ultimately settled out of court, with Kolomoisky transferring two lavish London apartments to Pinchuk as part of the agreement. Clearly, at the very least, Pinchuk knows where certain bodies are buried.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian journalist Geogry Gongadze, who was killed in 2000.<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0Sputnik \/ Valery Miloserdov <\/p>\n
What is the nature of Pinchuk\u2019s relationship with George Soros?
\nPinchuk\u2019s Ukrainian media empire is a gigantic grift that keeps on giving. His ICTV dominates the news landscape, while also reeling in casual viewers with movies and TV dramas. Pinchuk\u2019s STB has cornered entertainment and lifestyle content, while Novyi Kanal is a hit with younger audiences, particularly its reality shows. While it may not always be obvious, a political agenda lurks behind the overwhelming majority of the content broadcast by these stations, which attract over 20% of the nation\u2019s TV viewers. A particularly blatant example occurred in the early 2000s, when Pinchuk quietly established a bogus opposition party targeted at disillusioned young people\u00a0\u2013 KOP. His TV networks aggressively promoted the party as an organic, grassroots, patriotic uprising.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Another resignation close to Zelensky: Ukraine\u2019s scam-call center revelations take down prosecutor general<\/p>\n
This not only took the form of fake news reports, but slick ads hyping KOP\u2019s supposed \u2018cool\u2019 factor, and an interactive reality show broadcast on both ICTV and STB. In it, average Ukrainian citizens competed to win a place running for the party in parliament. KOP and other fake opposition infrastructure funded by Pinchuk collapsed in the wake of the Orange Revolution, which also placed some of the oligarch\u2019s local business interests at risk. No matter.\u00a0Pinchuk simply moved assets abroad, headquartering his empire in the UK under the name EastOne, and increasing his \u2018philanthropic\u2019 investments alongside Western foundations. On top of a hedge against rising anger at oligarchs such as himself at home, the time had come for Pinchuk to leverage his wealth to command global geopolitical influence.
\nThis transition was admittedly inspired by controversial Hungarian billionaire George Soros. The two became close personal friends in the 2000s, their respective foundations often co-funding projects in Ukraine and beyond. An August 2008 New York Times profile of Pinchuk featured warm praise from Soros, describing his Ukrainian protege as \u201can enlightened capitalist, and there are not many in that part of the world.\u201d The profile described how Pinchuk had funded programs run by numerous prestigious US think tanks and academic institutions, \u201cto sustain his quixotic dream of securing Ukraine\u2019s entry into the European Union.\u201d Pinchuk\u2019s famous pals, including President Bill Clinton and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, were \u201clured\u2026 to give speeches\u2026 to support the cause.\u201d
\nAt home, Pinchuk\u2019s battle for hearts and minds had seen him recently finance Paul McCartney to perform a concert in Kiev\u2019s Independence \u2013 now Maidan \u2013 Square, for a crowd of 350,000 \u201cexultant Ukrainians.\u201d Cheering his \u201cbrute political calculation and ruthless business practice,\u201d the New York Times recorded how many billionaires in the region had in recent years \u201ctaken steps to present themselves as acceptable international figures\u2026 but few, if any, have been as bluntly aggressive in using art, philanthropy, public policy and even rock \u2018n\u2019 roll to advance their agendas as Mr. Pinchuk.\u201d His collection of Western celebrity and political friends was said to provide \u201cthe gaudy tapestry of legitimacy that Mr. Pinchuk so badly craves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul McCartney performs during the ‘Independence Concert’ in Independence Square, June 14, 2008, Kiev, Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0 MJ Kim \/ MPL Communications Ltd via Getty Images <\/p>\n
The New York Times warned that Pinchuk\u2019s displays of wealth and power were \u201cnot so easily digested in Ukraine, a country ravaged by inflation, AIDS and an inchoate political process.\u201d In today\u2019s wartime Ukraine, these issues are perhaps the least of an average citizen\u2019s worries. But while Pinchuk has by-and-large vanished from the public eye today, his political protection has only grown. Conspicuously, while other Ukrainian oligarchs\u00a0\u2013 including Ukraine\u2019s richest man Rinat Akhmetov \u2013\u00a0were required to sell off their media assets once the proxy war erupted, Pinchuk has managed to keep his own. Clearly, Pinchuk\u2019s deep integration with Western elites grants him levels of insulation his adversaries can only dream about \u2013 just like his hero, color revolution specialist George Soros.
\nHow does Pinchuk get away with it all?<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
The Oligarch Part 1: How one powerful man made Zelensky president, Ukraine his pocket state, and sent it to war<\/p>\n
Despite his longstanding and highly rewarding policy of avoiding overt political involvement, in December 2016, Pinchuk made a highly public intervention in Ukrainian \u2013 and global \u2013 affairs. He authored an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, outlining how his country \u201cmust make painful compromises for peace with Russia,\u201d in reference to the brutal Anti-Terrorist Operation waged by Kiev against the defenseless citizens of Donbass. Pinchuk proposed that peace could be achieved by Ukraine; \u201ctemporarily eliminating European Union membership from our stated goals\u201d; recognizing locally-organized elections in Donbass; understanding \u201cUkraine will not join NATO in the near- or midterm,\u201d pursuing \u201can alternative security arrangement\u201d to NATO, and accepting neutrality \u201cas our near-term vision for the future.\u201d Quite reasonable suggestions, one might think \u2013 and a clear blueprint for a brighter, more peaceful future for Ukraine.
\nHowever, many pro-Maidan figures within Ukrainian civil society and politics viciously attacked Pinchuk for trying to talk sense. Among them was Mustafa Nayyem, a veteran reporter at Western-funded media outlets who personally kickstarted the Maidan protests in late 2013. In a long-winded hatchet job for Ukrainskaya Pravda, Nayyem repeatedly slammed Pinchuk\u2019s compromise\u00a0propositions as \u201ccapitulation.\u201d When Zelensky won Ukraine\u2019s 2019 presidential election on a platform of implementing more or less what Pinchuk advocated three years prior, Nayyem\u2019s retort to the oligarch\u2019s prescriptions gifted hardline Ukrainian ultranationalists \u2013 including the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion \u2013 a campaign slogan to ensure there would be no peace in Donbass.
\nIn October 2019, Zelensky moved to disarm the various Neo-Nazi militias and street gangs fighting the Anti-Terrorist Operation, hold a referendum on granting Donbass special status\u00a0within the country, and traveled personally to the front line to meet with Azov leader Andriy Biletsky, imploring him and his fighters to lay down their weapons and leave Donbass. However, Biletsky mocked and threatened Zelensky to his face, while under the banner of \u201cNo Capitulation!\u201d\u00a0Azov organized huge protests in Kiev and other major Ukrainian cities, bussing in tens of thousands of people. Peace was comprehensively off the table. So Zelensky began preparing for a grand military offensive to recapture Crimea and Donbass, provoking Russia\u2019s military operation.<\/p>\n
The Azov battalion led by Andrey Biletsky marching during Independence Day, August 24, 2019, Kiev, Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0 Gaelle Girbes \/ Getty Images <\/p>\n
In retrospect, Pinchuk\u2019s compromise\u00a0proposal gives every appearance of being a psychological operation, intended to discredit any prospect of peace in Ukraine. His trial balloon granted ultranationalist Maidan elements within the country a straw man to publicly immolate, so any suggestion of conciliation with Donbass, let alone Russia, could appear deeply unpopular among average Ukrainians, and the determination of Azov Battalion and other ultraviolent factions to fight on could be presented as organic and principled. This interpretation is greatly reinforced by a March 2020 joint letter signed by two dozen Ukrainian NGOs, almost all funded by Western governments and foundations, condemning any direct dialogue between Kiev and the People\u2019s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.
\nIn many cases, such as Neo-Nazi aligned \u2018factchecker\u2019 StopFake, the signatory organizations had received substantial sums from Pinchuk\u2019s personal foundation. Never forget, the oligarch is a master of theater and misdirection. Pinchuk\u2019s love of modern art and impressive, exorbitantly expensive collection of pieces by famous artists including Damien Hirst has been widely reported. In June 2022, Pinchuk sold a balloon sculpture created by Jeff Koons at auction, raising over $10 million for humanitarian aid to Ukraine. What the Western media has failed to admit is the oligarch\u2019s interest in art is just for show \u2013 and intended to suppress awkward questions about his shady background, criminal financial dealings, and personal complicity in appalling crimes.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
The Oligarch Part 2: How one powerful man made Zelensky president, Ukraine his pocket state, and sent it to war<\/p>\n
How does Pinchuk use art for image management?
\nIn 2005, with Kuchma out of office and the potential for serious investigations into Georgiy Gongadze\u2019s murder and Pinchuk\u2019s corrupt profiteering from his relationship with his presidential father-in-law very high, the oligarch and his family were \u201cbattered by bad headlines.\u201d\u00a0So Pinchuk hired a PR company based in Paris to help, and they recommended that he \u201cbuy art and put it on public display.\u201d He immediately became an art collector with hundreds of millions burning a hole in his pocket, and in need of laundering on top of his reputation.\u00a0
\n\u201cOver the next few years he acquired voraciously as prices for contemporary art were reaching their peak\u2026 The clear temptation for any dealer with such a keen and rich buyer in a hurry, particularly one who knows little about art, is to encourage him to purchase work that more discerning buyers wouldn\u2019t look twice at,\u201d\u00a0the Art Newspaper said in 2011. \u201cRarely has so much money been spent so quickly on so much bad art.\u201d
\nPinchuk\u2019s expensive haul, which included paintings \u201cuniversally panned by critics,\u201d was \u201cacquired voraciously as prices for contemporary art were reaching their peak,\u201d but he claims to be \u201cnot too bothered about the fluctuations in price of the works he buys,\u201d as \u201cthis is not a financial investment.\u201d The same is true of the incalculable quantities of cash he flings at major Western institutions, such as the hundreds of thousands he has given to Tony Blair\u2019s Faith Foundation, and NATO think tank the Atlantic Council, where he sits on the advisory board and has year in, year out for over a decade been among the organization\u2019s top donors, gifting $250,000 to $499,999 annually.\u00a0
\nMillions given to Western politicians, including Hillary Clinton, also provide rewards and returns beyond just \u201cfinancial investment.\u201d Pinchuk\u2019s powerful friends in Brussels, London, Tel Aviv, and Washington are a lifetime bulletproof vest that keeps the prying eyes and hands of citizens and governments all over the world from his obscene fortune, and the historical, material, and personal means by which he acquired it. In turn, Pinchuk becomes absolutely indispensable to whoever in theory \u2018runs\u2019 Ukraine at a given time, his position unassailable if regimes collapse. The man celebrated openly as Kiev\u2019s eternal \u201cbridge to the West\u201d is simply too valuable, and has too much dirt on everyone, to be expected to play by the rules.<\/p>\n
This is the forth\u00a0part of RT\u2019s The Oligarch special series. Read the previous parts to learn about other Ukrainian oligarchs, the corruption networks they established, their ties to neo-Nazi combat battalions, and their roles in the coups that shook the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Victor Pinchuk has kept a low profile while his money, media, and Western connections continue to work for him Late August brought news that the Victor Pinchuk Foundation is partnering…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t