Oligarch wars reignited: Kolomoisky and his shark tank
Kolomoisky's revenge, Akhmetov vs the EU, 90% of soldiers 'forcibly mobilized villagers', shooting draft-dodgers, 'everything is intriguing against Zelensky', Boris Epshteyn, Hunter Biden, Trump.
Two parts to today’s post. First, how the everyman is living - worse than ever. Second, a flurry of excitement for the elite.
Today’s topics:
Open-fire season on draft dodgers
The social composition of the army - 90% forcibly mobilized villagers
The conflict between transnational and national capital: the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development won’t help save Ukraine’s energy system unless control over the system is handed over to Europe
‘Everyone is intriguing against Zelensky’ - how Trump’s coming inauguration has set loose a flurry of elite agitation against everyone’s least favorite comedian
More confirmation from a top Poroshenkite that medics and aviation specialists are being forcibly transferred to infantry
Kolomoisky rising: how everyone’s favorite oligarch has finally returned from hibernation to launch a glorious jihad against his old protege Zelensky. Also, learn about his ‘Bond-villain’ shark tanks and Chabad links.
Kolomoisky and the US: Hunter Biden and Boris Epshteyn
A new Ukrainian biography of Zelensky has dropped, titled ‘the Joker’. Read an excerpt on Zelensky as a ‘symbol of postmodernism’
A deep dive into the links between the US democrat-party, Zelenskite, and Poroshenkite elite networks by imprisoned Ukrainian parliamentarian Dubinsky (in prison due to his role in the Hunter Biden/Burisma saga).
Hunting season
On November 15, a video made the rounds showing what looked like a TSK (mobilization officer) opening fire on a man near Kiev.
According to the ministry of defense, it was a TSK officer responsible. But this was disputed by parliamentarian Fedienko on November 16 - he claimed it was a ‘volunteer assistant’ to the TSK. The police also held to this version of events. I wrote here a while ago about the phenomenon of the TSK hiring violent private security groups here and here.
Who is being taken to the army? A quite detailed answer to this question emerged in mid-November.
Commander of a mortar battery in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Myroslav Borysenko, told the TV channel TSN that ‘90% of those fighting at the front are forcibly mobilized villagers’.
This is quite a symptomatic story - it shows how the social composition of Ukrainian soldiers has changed. In 2022, there was a large, dominant component of the urban middle class - the social basis of nationalism, voluntarily fighting for their ideas. By now, so many have been killed or incapacitated that they are replaced with forcibly mobilized representatives of ‘the masses’. And they have little desire to die for the ideals of the tiny, fanatical urban petit-bourgeois. The western media paints it as ‘Ukrainians are tired after 2 years’, but in reality the truth is that ‘the minority class of Ukrainians keen to fight has been expended.’
There are practically no residents from big cities among us. We literally have just one. And me. However, in 2022, the social composition was entirely different. Now, over 90% of those here are from small towns and villages. Almost all of them were conscripted through "bussification." The stories they tell are hilariously absurd. All of them are about someone going somewhere—and then this happened to them.
One of the soldiers, for instance, was looking for a construction job through an advertisement. He went to the Chernivtsi region, met with the foreman, handed over his documents, only to discover that the foreman was actually an agent of the Territorial Recruitment Center (TRC)," said Borisenko.
He added that in villages, there are individuals who, for unknown reasons—perhaps to avoid being conscripted themselves—collaborate with the TRC and report those who are dodging or hiding.
"I think there are no more draft dodgers in rural areas because there's nowhere for them to hide. Draft dodgers (I apologize for using this term—I'm using it in a broad sense) are all in the cities. They’re all there. A draft dodger doesn’t hide in a dugout in the forest; they’re in Kyiv, Odesa, and Dnipro."
Not real Ukrainians
No matter the putatively ‘pro-peace’ mood in western media, political influencers in Ukraine think otherwise. A female military medic stated her desire to see everyone ‘on the front’ on TV. Member of the Kyiv City Council from the ultra-pro-western 'Holos' party and the head of the 'Ulf' medical service, Alina Mykhailova, stated the following on November 24:
'Some people think they can buy their way out for 5-10 thousand, or leave, or swim across the Tisza—that shouldn't be the case. Everyone to the front!'"
Another warrior Amazon stated on November 19 she doesn’t see draft-dodgers as Ukrainians:
Some people left and still consider themselves Ukrainians. By ‘left,’ I don’t mean situations where certain circumstances forced them to—like losing their home or something like that—but those who simply left and are sitting there. To me, they’re not Ukrainians. Because Ukrainians, who have the ability, contribute to the fight.
The self-described ‘Christian Taliban’ leader Dmytro Korchinsky claimed draft dodgers ‘must be caught’, and once that is done, they ‘will realize that the army is all he ever dreamed of’. I’ve written here recently about Korchinsky's lack of interest in serving at the frontlines himself, along with that of his children.
And on November 18, ‘Tuna’ from the Azov Batallion (the 3rd Storm Brigade) promised on TV that ‘the TSK will find you in your home.’
Danger isn’t only concentrated at the frontlines. After a night of solitary drinking, a recently-returned soldier in the Odessa region decapitated a 5-year old girl who was loud in the morning. This took place place on November 18.
Oligarch war I: global vs national
Now let’s have a look at the ‘tops’. Maybe they are ‘real Ukrainians’. This was posted on December 4 by a anonymous Ukrainian telegram:
Both in 2021, before the war, and in 2024, nearing the war's end, Ukraine's Top 10 wealthiest figures remained almost unchanged. In 2021, the Top 10 included Rinat Akhmetov, Victor Pinchuk, Kostyantyn Zhevago, Ihor Kolomoyskyi, Gennadiy Bogolyubov, Oleksandr and Halyna Gereha, Petro Poroshenko, Vadym Novynskyi, Oleksandr Yaroslavskyi, and Yuriy Kosiuk. By 2024, the only changes were the slight decline in wealth of Bogolyubov, Kosiuk, and Yaroslavskyi, who were replaced by agricultural oligarch Verevskyi and IT oligarchs Yatsenko and Lytvyn.
In January 2022, the top three contenders in the presidential race were Zelensky, Poroshenko, and Yulia Tymoshenko. Also in the Top 10 were Razumkov, Boyko, Smeshko, Murayev, Groysman, and Medvedchuk. By November 2024, a ranking commissioned by American political services from the United States showed the top three hypothetical presidential candidates as Zaluzhny, Zelensky, and Poroshenko. The Top 10 also included Yulia Tymoshenko, Budanov, Razumkov, Prytula, and Klitschko.
Thus, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have been killed and maimed, only for the primary oligarchs and their aligned politicians and officials to retain their power and wealth.
To begin with, a bit of the usual - the conflict between transnational and national Ukraine. This is probably the main contradiction determining processes inside Ukraine. One of my most important articles here is about how national capital - ‘the oligarchs’ - ended up supporting the Minsk peace agreements, but were blocked from implementing them by the representatives of transnational capital in Ukraine - the NGO nationalists. I also wrote an article back in July 2022 about the conflict between the Zelensky government and the domestic oligarch class.
This conflict become visible once again because of a late November publication in the Italian Corriere Della Sera.
‘Europe and funds for Ukraine's reconstruction: "No money for the oligarch Akhmetov.’
According to the article, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) decided it didn’t want to support Ukraine’s energy system. It’s been under heavy attack lately by Russian missile systems, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the population this winter. The EBRD decided not be excessively charitable because Ukraine’s energy system is largely owned by Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man since the 2000s:
"The goal of freeing the economy from the influence of oligarchs is absolutely fundamental, and we have very firm ideas about this: it is part of the reforms necessary for Ukraine to join the European Union. If we were to compromise on this issue, we would harm the country's long-term prospects," said EBRD President Odile Renaud-Basso in an interview with Corriere.
Millions of Ukrainians currently suffering from low temperatures and power outages will have to wait for loans or financial assistance until Akhmetov relinquishes control of the group.:
"We need a change in structure," stated Renaud-Basso.
Some telegram channels have speculated that Akhmetov will try deal with this by transferring his capital to Europe. One channel brought up the recent news that Akhmetov is planning on opening a 2.4 million euro steel factory in Italy.
Oligarch war II: Kolomoisky rising
Now, something new. Ukraine’s big business, so noticeably muzzled in wartime, has been been uncharacteristically active of late in criticizing Zelensky.
It almost feels like we’re back in November/December 2021, when Ukraine’s richest man Rinat Akhmetov gathered around him an anti-Zelensky coalition - at an infamous November 27 2021 press conference, Zelensky even accused Akhmetov of organizing a ‘coup’ against him with Russian help.
And who is it leading the charge against Zelensky? None other than Ihor Kolomoisky, imprisoned since September 2023. Let’s face it, there’s no one there’s more fun to discuss than Igor Valerievych. One can only recall his response to a journalist who asked how his dual-citizenship complies with Ukraine’s constitution, which forbids it:
‘The constitution only forbids dual citizenship. I have Ukrainian, Cypriot, and Israeli citizenship - that isn’t forbidden.’
Kolomoisky has been VERY uncharacteristically silent since his 2023 arrest. Keep in mind that he himself is well-known to have been the oligarch who brought Zelensky to power back in 2019, as a solution to then-president Poroshenko’s excessive centralization of power. For a few years after 2014, and a few years after Zelensky’s election in 2019, he was probably Ukraine’s most powerful man.
The fascinating question is at which point, and why, he had such an acrimonious breakup with Zelensky. It’s probably all quite simple, the classic story of Ukrainian politics - once i power, the figure brought in by the oligarchs tried to centralize power too much. The same reason why Akhmetov, who was Yanukovych’s main sponsor, ended up going against him in 2013-14.
I wrote about Kolomoisky’s dizzying ideological transformations here - while originally one of the main supporters of Euromaidan to remove president Yanukovych in 2014, he eventually turned against the liberal ultra-nationalist forces it unleashed. Everything was quite logically consistent: Kolomoisky’s priority was always the preservation of his business assets.
All of which is to say, it is quite strange indeed that Kolomoisky has remained silent while his cherished business empire is stripped away from him.
But on November 26, Ukraine’s highest court rejected Kolomoisky’s case to de-nationalize his PrivatBank. This was the biggest bone of contention between him and the government - in reality, between him and transnational capital, which has been trying for about a decade to sever Kolomoisky’s control from his sprawling PrivatBank empire. While the IMF and western embassies have forever demanded Privatbank’s nationalization, Kolomoisky has naturally resisted the move.
And on November 30, Kolomoisky broke his silence. He gave a long interview to UNIAN - conveniently enough, a media group owned by Kolomoisky himself. An English-language summary can be read here. In it, he accused Zelensky of various improprieties over the November 2022 nationalization of his important gas company Ukrnafta:
These reasons have nothing to do with the law, military interests, or desires. It is a blatant corporate raid to enrich certain individuals. The organizers of this operation didn’t even bother to hide their intentions, appointing their own representatives to the newly formed Supervisory Board
He also revealed that the new Supervisory Board mainly consisted of individuals directly connected to the Office of the President:
"Formally, they were labeled as representatives of the Ministry of Defense, but in reality, they had no connection to the military,"
Interestingly, Kolomoisky claimed that ex-head of the army Zaluzhny was against the move - clearly, he is trying to court this popular figure, who was named in a recent poll once again as the most popular presidential candidate.
Kolomoisky also stated that in the summer of 2022, he received an offer from Rostyslav Shurma, then Deputy Head of the Office of the President, for a "voluntary" surrender of his shares in Ukrnafta and Ukrtatnafta. Kolomoiskyi emphasized that the offer included surrendering his shares in exchange for settlement agreements in court cases involving PrivatBank.
"According to Shurma, it was presented as an offer from the President and the Head of the Office of the President, Andriy Yermak, an offer I supposedly couldn’t refuse," Kolomoiskyi said.
He also stated that his Ukrainian citizenship was used as a means of blackmail. He claimed that President Volodymyr Zelensky secretly stripped him of his citizenship after he refused to voluntarily hand over the shares of Ukrnafta and Ukrtatnafta:
"Following this, my shares in Ukrnafta and Ukrtatnafta were also confiscated, and I was thrown behind bars to limit my ability to challenge the seizure of my assets."
Kolomoisky is just one of many Ukrainian businessmen to enjoy wartime extortion practices. I’ve written here earlier about how Kolomoisky’s old PrivatBank partner Gennadiy Bogolyubov - now safely outside of Ukraine - stated earlier this year that the Zelensky government demanded a $100 million USD bribe. In exchange, he would stay out of the jail which has become his old business partner’s home.
All this means one thing, which I’ve written about many times here - Zelensky and his cohort are the main domestic interests in continuing the war. If it ends, they are done for. You don’t want someone like Kolomoisky out for vengeance - unless you want to sleep with the sharks.
Between Hunter and the shark
Whence this newfound freedom to attack the president? Strana.ua makes the obvious conclusion - Trump is coming. ‘Everyone is intriguing against Zelensky’ is what strana’s political sources told it for a December 3 article.
Zelensky has his fair share of bad blood with Trump. Trump famously asked Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden’s bad behavior in Ukraine in 2019. But once Biden got into the white house, Zelensky ended up sanctioning and eventually arresting/chasing out of the country the Ukrainian politicians (Aleksandr Dubinsky and Andrey Derkach) with the closest connections to Trump, who Rudy Giulani was working with on the Hunter case.
Kolomoisky, by the way, likely owned significant or commanding shares in Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company Hunter committed his misdeeds at. Mr Kolomoisky is thought to have controlled Burisma through, naturally, opaque PrivatBank structures.
Strana argues that many in Ukraine’s political and business are currently hoping that Trump’s impatience for Zelensky will mean that the latter will find his dictatorial powers limited or wholly cancelled. And Kolomoisky has quite good connections with Trump:
According to Strana's sources, Kolomoiskyi has established contact with one of Trump's close associates, Boris Epshteyn. However, Epshteyn was recently involved in a scandal. Media reports stated that he was engaged in extortion, allegedly asking potential candidates for positions in the new U.S. presidential administration to pay him money to secure Trump's approval. Following this, it was reported that Epshteyn was removed from all processes within the elected president's team with a "black mark."
Regarding the accusations against Epshteyn, Trump commented: "I think that every president has people around them who try to make money off their position on the side. It's shameful, but it happens. No one can promise endorsements or appointments—only I make these decisions myself."
Later, however, media outlets reported that Trump had ultimately kept Epshteyn on his team. Still, the extent of his current influence remains unclear.
Unsurprising, given Kolomoisky’s own persona - the sort of guy you can imagine Trump getting along with. And more importantly, Kolomoisky’s comfort in international rightwing Zionist networks like that of the Chabad Lubovitcher movement - Trump’s own daughter, having converted to Judaism, regularly visits Chabad sites.
And as a treat, some more saucy details from a NyPost article on Mr Kolomoisky:
The Bond villain-like Kolomoisky, 57, reportedly kept a live shark in a huge tank in his office to intimidate visitors, and once called the 5-foot-7 Russian President Vladimir Putin a “schizophrenic dwarf.”
But his bloodthirstiness reportedly matched his bravado. He crushed Russian separatists with his own private armies, according to numerous Ukrainian and international media reports, and he allegedly ordered contract killings, including a hit on a Ukrainian lawyer as well as the murders of gang members involved in the hit, the Daily Beast reported.
There’s been other political figures more open in their criticism of Zelensky. Recently-sacked foreign minister Kuleba (more here) gave an interview to Politico on November 27. In it, he was quite pessimistic about Zelensky’s chances in the war. The first section also seems to indicate that the Politico editors and the western establishment as a whole is on Kuleba’s side against Zelensky:
Finally, Kost’ Bondarenko, a social-democratic political commentator I quite like, released a biography of Zelensky on November 27.
Titled ‘Joker: the real political biography of Vladimir Zelensky’, Bondarenko released the following excerpt on his telegram:
Zelensky has become a symbol of postmodernism and a rethinking of our role and place in the new geopolitical reality, as well as a leader who had to head the country during the most difficult times. He is a joker in the grand political game, the most valuable card that depicts a jester but also carries extraordinary power and weight. At the same time, in today's culture, the Joker is the evil clown from comics, and later, TV series about 'Batman.' It is no coincidence that in 2019, literally three months after Zelensky's inauguration, Todd Phillips' film Joker was released—a socio-political thriller that turned out to be prophetic in many ways for Zelensky. Although prophecies for the current President of Ukraine can also be sought in other works. For instance, in Maciej Stryjkowski's Chronicle, which tells the story of how, in the 16th century, a wandering artist, Jakub Miałszyński, who presented himself as Jesus Christ, claimed power in the territory of modern western Belarus. Or in Hoffmann's Little Zaches.
Poroshenkites whining
It hasn’t only been Kolomoisky complaining about Zelensky. There’s also the pre-2022 largest opposition party to Zelensky, the pro-western nationalist ‘European Solidarity’. It itself is led by Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine from 2014-19, and himself one of Ukraine’s top 10 richest men.
Oleksiy Goncharenko is maybe Poroshenko’s most visible parliamentarian. Like Poroshenko, he wasn’t always a steadfast Ukrainian nationalist - 15 years ago, he was a politician in the ‘pro-Russian’ Party of Regions who claimed to defend the rights of Russian speakers. Anyway, he is generally much more open in his criticism of Zelensky than Poroshenko himself - he does the dirty work. He posted the following text on November 14:
❗️❗️❗️This is fucked up! Every day I receive numerous reports that professional medics are being reassigned from military hospitals to combat positions in infantry.
Let me repeat: people who save the lives of our soldiers and perform complex surgeries daily are being reassigned as assault troops.
This means you have completely failed the mobilization process, using outdated Soviet-style methods. Instead of sending trained personnel, you’re deploying medical professionals to the infantry, where they have NO relevant training whatsoever.
Meanwhile, people with combat experience are sitting in Territorial Recruitment Centers shuffling paperwork. We still don’t have six-month contracts for those willing to return to service for a specified period. And I won’t even start on the fact that there’s no defined term of service at all!
Medics are not just another combat unit; they are the first line of aid and a chance of survival for every soldier.
What are you doing?
All this confirms what I reported earlier about medics and aviation specialists being forcibly transferred to infantry. He went on to publish messages he had received on the topic:
Personnel from the Air Force are also being transferred to the Ground Forces: they are mobilized, given a month of basic training, and then, within a week, transferred to the Ground Forces, straight to the frontlines, specifically in the Zaporizhzhia direction. Air defense specialists, radio operators—everyone is being taken and reassigned to infantry roles.
He also published this testimony from a subscriber, though he seems to have deleted it from his telegram:
The computational and analytical unit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces consists of 70 people. An order has been issued to send 20 of them to the front lines. This unit consists of chemists who have undergone training abroad and were being safeguarded for cases of nuclear danger—essentially future "suicide squads" who would save everyone in an extreme situation. The same applies to all units stationed in the eastern regions. All support services must send 25% of their personnel to the trenches.
On November 29, another well-known Poroshenkite Yury Lutsenko called for negotiations on facebook. He was minister of internal affairs under Poroshenko and partly responsible for creating the infamous Myrotvorets website. Lutsenko, by the way, had fairly good relations with Trump in the latter’s 2019 attempt to dig up Ukraine dirt on Biden.
Anyway, Lutsenko’s facebook slogan regarding negotiations is the following: ‘our options are either Minsk or Istanbul.’
Minsk refers to the Minsk agreements, signed in 2014-15 by then-president Poroshenko (see my series of articles on them). Istanbul refers to the failed talks between Ukraine and Russia in April 2022.
Lutsenko is arguing that Poroshenko’s Minsk agreements allowed Ukraine to strengthen its army. This is a cynical, instrumental view of the agreements beloved by Poroshenko in his followers. The Minsk agreements were in fact intended to provide rights to Russian-speakers in Ukraine.
In contrast, Zelensky representatives at the Istanbul negotiations seemed to agree with Russia’s demand for formalized demilitarization of the Ukrainian army and a formal renunciation of NATO-membership and other forms of military cooperation with other nations - none of which was in Minsk.
Anyway, here’s an extract from his post:
…
It seems that Putin, with his Oreshnyk [ICBM missile strike last week], is playing a similar game [to Khrushchev in the Cuban missile crisis]. His plan involves inducing global panic, fueled by statements from our ignorant officials about a so-called "intercontinental missile." The plan further includes strikes with non-nuclear warheads, likely targeting a training ground where NATO instructors are training the Ukrainian Armed Forces, culminating in blackmail with threats of a strike on Kyiv, accompanied by global nuclear hysteria.
All this appears aimed at concluding a new Treaty on the Prohibition of Intermediate-Range and Short-Range Missiles. Let me remind you that such a treaty was signed in 1987 by Reagan and Gorbachev. In 2018, President Trump withdrew from it due to violations by Russia. After the inauguration, signing a new agreement between the U.S. and Russia could serve as a "carrot" for the deranged Putin, who dreams of returning to the table of major powers.
In such a development, it is crucial for us not to allow Ukraine's security to be neglected in this "happy ending." President Trump will certainly not hand all of Ukraine over to Putin. However, whether we retain our right to a missile deterrent arsenal and serious bilateral agreements on military assistance depends on who will shape Ukraine's position.
Therefore, we need a ceasefire. This would open the door to elections—not so much for the President of Ukraine as for the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who will determine the format of the peace agreement. The choice is simple: Minsk or Istanbul. An armed fortress or a defenseless victim.
Zelensky between the clans
But it might not be entirely correct to assume a violent contradiction between the Zelensky and Poroshenko elite. Oleksandr Dubinsky, the imprisoned parliamentarian I wrote about here, published this on November 14:
It seems necessary to explain how so many people associated with Poroshenko ended up surrounding Zelensky after he was elected president.
Unfortunately, during his presidency, Donald Trump was unable to fully rid the State Department of the influence of the Obama-Clinton clan. For instance, he failed to replace, and subsequently appoint someone other than Yovanovitch, as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.
Yovanovitch, like her successor Brink, was controlled by George Kent, one of the key figures in the network of Soros-affiliated operatives in the State Department.
For example, Kent recommended Arakhamia for the list of candidates in Servant of the People and facilitated his appointment as the head of the Servant of the People parliamentary faction. Everyone knows who David was under Poroshenko. Other Poroshenko-era officials, with whom I personally fought in 2019-2020, came recommended by Pinchuk.
In other words, the so-called "Poroshenko people" were actually Pinchuk's people. Just like Leshchenko, who was in the previous composition of the Poroshenko faction, and now serves as an advisor to Yermak.
Poroshenko owes his entire career to Kuchma, to whom he swore eternal loyalty on the Melnychenko tapes. He is simply fulfilling his obligations in this regard.
Pinchuk introduced Ryaboshapka and Danyliuk to Zelensky, reinforced Yermak with his connections, connected the new president with U.S. Democrats, and through them inserted his people into Zelensky's team.
As a result, Servant of the People became a party of Soros affiliates and grant recipients, which, after Kolomoisky was sidelined from business and politics, is now fully controlled by Pinchuk.
The head of the President's Office, representing the Kuchma-Pinchuk axis, is Yermak, who ensures that another wing of Kuchma's influence—Levochkin, Boyko, Medvedchuk—has a share of power.
Let us not forget that Kuchma, with the Kremlin's approval, is the father of Ukrainian oligarchy. And he continues to control it to this day.
They use "soviet style" as some sort of derogatory term for military organisation and planning but the Soviets had their shit together a lot more than this shower of clowns