Jewish Oligarch Spends Millions on Militia To Hold Onto Ukraine Province
23 May 2014
Ukrainian militia fighters who clashed with armed pro-Russian separatists on Friday are at the forefront of Kiev’s efforts to prevent the country splitting.
Co-funded by Igor Kolomoisky, one of Ukraine’s richest men, they play a more assertive role than the unarmed miners and metalworkers working for another oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov, who more recently spoke against the rebels.
At least two people were killed in Friday’s firefight involving the pro-Ukrainian ‘Donbass Battalion’ allied to Kolomoisky. The violence took place just two days before a presidential election the separatists have vowed to disrupt.
Kolomoisky, appointed governor of the eastern region of Dnipropetrovsk in March, has spent tens of millions of dollars, an aide said, to prevent his territory falling, like the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk further to the east, into separatist hands and being proclaimed autonomous “people’s republics”.
Among Ukraine’s five richest men, the 51-year-old has put a $10,000 bounty on the head of any Russian “saboteur” and has bought up weapons from people to help pacify the region.
https://forward.com/news/breaking-news/198812/jewish-oligarch-spends-millions-on-militia-to-hold/