Dmytro Firtash
Dmytro Wassylowytsch Firtash ( born 2 May 1965 in Bohdanovka (now Synkiw ), Rajon Zalischyky in the Ternopil Oblast, Ukrainian SSR ) is a Ukrainian businessman and co-owner of gas intermediary RosUkrEnergo, which is 50 percent owned by Gazprom. Firtash applies with a fortune estimated at 10 billion euros in March 2014 as one of the richest Ukrainians. He had, in particular during the tenure of Viktor Yanukovych, a great political influence in Ukraine. Firtash has close contacts with Russia and the gas, chemicals, media and banking works.
Life
His education completed Firtash 1984 at the Railway Technical Centre of Dnipropetrovsk off and did his military service from 1984 to 1986 in the Soviet Army. After his time in the army he was in Czernowitz few years fireman.
Since 2000 Firtash is the natural gas business operates, among others, as an intermediary in Russian- Turkmen gas supplies to Ukraine. In 2001, he founded the company based in Hungary " Eural TG ", which transit transactions transacted for natural gas supplies from Russia to Ukraine. In 2004, this company was liquidated, partly because of connections to organized crime.
Since 2005, RosUkrEnergo, the intermediary for gas supplies from Russia to Ukraine, Firtash owns 45 % of the shares of this company. Since part of the imported Russian gas is sold on the world market at a profit, the natural gas business is considered to be extremely lucrative as well as politically sensitive and prone to conflict (see Russian - Ukrainian gas dispute ).
Firtash had a good understanding already with the former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and was long considered an influential ally of former President Viktor Yanukovych. Conversely, the former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is considered his bitter opponent. Tymoshenko had Firtash accused of being temporarily been business partners or the front man for the mob boss Semyon Mogilevich.
Dmytro Firtash is one of the richest men in the Ukraine, a large part of its companies are now in the " Group DF" summarized their seat in Vienna. Firtaschs fortune was estimated in March 2014 to over 10 billion dollars.
On February 17, 2012 Firtash, was appointed by President Yanukovych to the head of the National Tripartite Social Economic Council, an advisory body to the Presidential Administration of Ukraine.
On February 1, 2013 Firtash acquired 100 percent of the shares of Intermedia Group Limited. This he was, inter alia, Owner of the TV channel Inter is regarded as the most popular TV channels of Ukraine. On the circumstances and background of this transaction has been speculation in the Ukrainian media.
As part of the protests of the Euromaidan moved Firtash, according to media reports, the support of the government from Yanukovych. Repeats Firtash was said to support the party of former boxing world champion Vitali Klitschko Udar. Klitschko, however, denied support by Firtash.
On March 12, 2014 Firtash was arrested at the headquarters of his Austrian company branch in Vienna, adopted in 2013 was based on a warrant of arrest of a U.S. Federal District Court on suspicion of bribery and membership in a criminal organization. Since 2006, the FBI was Firtash had determined. On March 21, 2014 Firtash was placed on bail of 125 million euros at liberty, the highest bail amount in the history of Austrian law. In Austria itself there was no investigation against him. The U.S. government calls from Austria for his extradition and stressed that the prosecution had nothing to do with the political upheaval in Ukraine. According to media reports, Firtash is accused by the U.S. Department of Justice to have paid 18.5 million U.S. dollars bribe to an official carrier in India in connection with a titanium production project. Firtash denies these allegations. His arrest was politically motivated U.S. action in connection with the Krimkrise.
The French newspaper Le Monde referred Firtaschs arrest, three days before the referendum in the Crimea, as a warning to the United States to the Russian elites.