Tuesday, June 12, 2007

RosUkrEnergo, Firtash, and a car smash..

The front page splash story in Rinat Akhmetov's 'Segodnya' newspaper was about RosUkrEnergo big-shot Dmytro Firtash's step-son, Sergiy Kalinovskiy, who was recently involved in an early-morning car crash in central Kyiv that resulted in the death of two people. Kalinovskiy was at the wheel of the immensely powerful BMW M6 convertible which slammed into a stationary Zhiguli. The 'beemer' is owned by Kyiv city council secretary Oles' Dovhiy - a pal of president Yushchenko's son Andriy... who also likes M6,s...

Firtash holds 90% of Centragas Holding AG shares, who, in turn own 50% of RUE.

'Ukrainska Pravda' covered the car smash, and its consequences several days ago.

'Segodnya' reveals that on Monday an attempt was made to smuggle Kalinovskiy out of the country on a chartered aircraft from the small Zhulyany airport in Kyiv. He was hastily returned to a private clinic where is being guarded by private security after the attempt failed.

In yesterday's posting about RUE and the elections I wrote "irreconcilable rivals PoR, BYuT, NU, and Socialists are however linked by a common objective - a low price for gas for Ukrainian industrial enterprises, and businessmen from all political camps will co-operate in order to obtain this.."

Ukraine's biggest businessmen have had enough of dealing with shady middlemen - they want to deal with the 'organ grinder - not the monkey'. And this story is gift of an opportunity to bring down Firtash a rung or two.

Update: By attempting to slip out of the country, Kalinovskiy broke the terms of his bail, and may be detained in custody after a court hearing tomorrow. [Not all airport officials are bribable, then.]

The two victims of the car smash were a ministry of internal affairs officer Volodymyr Kulikovskiy who was on his way to work as a security official at the Japanese embassy, and Kalinovskiy's 25 year old girl friend Anastasiya Bronnikova. Her funeral was attended by many well-known politicians and their 'golden children', including the president's son.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Here's something that's worse.

Kalinovsky, who killed 2 people with his BMW while speeding in Kyiv, was fined 34 hryvnias.


Apparently, life in Ukraine is cheap - very, very cheap.

http://5tv.com.ua/newsline/231//41856/