In the battle for Ukraine’s future, oligarchs are turning away from the government.
A newspaper owned by Billionaire Viktor Pinchuk gave journalists a makeshift office to cover protesters trying to topple President Viktor Yanukovych. Petro Poroshenko, Yanukovych’s ex-economy minister and the head of Ukraine’s largest chocolate maker, sided with demonstrators in a speech at Kiev’s Independence Square. Tycoon Dmitry Firtash’s TV station Inter aired footage countering government claims that protesters incited violence that has left hundreds hurt.
Yanukovych, who’s stood against hundreds of thousands of angry voters after snubbing a European Union free-trade deal in favor of Russia, is now seeing support from the nation’s richest executives slipping away. After boosting their fortunes and supporting Yanukovych’s tenure, oligarchs now face credit-ratings downgrades and the loss of lucrative Western markets, where 19 Ukrainian companies, including Mironovskiy Hleboproduct SA, the largest poultry producer, are traded.
“Yanukovych is in office because the oligarchs wanted him there,” Jan Techau, the director of the Brussels office of the Carnegie Endowment, said in a phone interview today. “If they abandon him, he’s toast.”
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