Allegations mount against oligarch Kolomoyskyi in Ukraine crisis

Ukrainian prosecutors have reported that oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi is suspected of organizing a contract killing. The man is currently being detained for his involvement in large-scale financial schemes.

While the prosecution did not name anyone directly, an anonymized photo released with their statement easily identified the well-known oligarch.

Former journalist and ex-deputy Serhiy Leshchenko disclosed that the allegation involves Kolomoyskyi commissioning the murder of lawyer Serhiy Karpenko, who had refused Kolomoyskyi's directives in a dispute concerning the Dniprospecstal company in Zaporizhzhia, as reported by the Interfax-Ukraine agency.

The prosecutors allege that Kolomoyskyi had ordered Karpenko's killing through a gang known for contract killings, leading to the lawyer being severely attacked with a knife. The intended victim, however, survived the assault.

In September 2023, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) informed Kolomoyskyi and several others of suspicions regarding the embezzlement of more than 9.2 billion hryvnias (approximately 340 million CAD), funds belonging to PrivatBank, which he once controlled. This sum is equivalent to over 254 million USD.

A Kyiv court had previously decided to detain Kolomoyskyi, one of Ukraine's richest entrepreneurs, for two months, which remains effective.

Kolomoyskyi, who backed Ukraine's present leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during the 2019 presidential elections, saw Zelenskyy affirm post-arrest that Ukraine would be a nation "with different rules" moving forward, ensuring that indulgences would not be extended to those "who looted Ukraine and placed themselves above the law and all rules."