Situationen i Ukraina just nu, del 3

Ukraine's Oligarchs Are at War (Again)
/---/
Kolomoisky /---/ seemed to believe he should be able to expand his business empire in exchange for the help he rendered to the Ukrainian state. He also continued exerting power over several nominally state-controlled businesses at which he had installed his managers under the previous regime.

One of these was Ukrtransnafta, Ukraine's state-owned oil pipeline operator, where Kolomoisky had a loyal figure, Oleksandr Lazorko, appointed as chief executive in 2009.
/---/
On Thursday, the government appointed a new chief executive for Ukrtransnafta, but Lazorko didn't want to leave. The bodyguards for the new appointee had to fight through a security cordon to get their boss into the office. Kolomoisky's reaction was swift. He occupied Ukrtransnafta's headquarters with a detail of camouflaged men, arriving with an entourage that included legislators.

Video footage of the raid looks as dramatic as anything seen in the 1990's, when the former Soviet Union's first billionaires were working on their first millions. Asked by a Radio Liberty journalist what a regional governor was doing at a state company's office so late, Kolomoisky replied (I'm editing out copious cursing): "I came to see you. I have no other chance to see your face, Radio Liberty. Why aren't you asking how Ukrtransnafta was seized and Russian subversives got in here? Or have you come to see Kolomoisky? We liberated the building from Russian subversives who had seized it, and you and your Liberty are sitting here watching like a dame watches for her unfaithful husband."

Apparently, Ukrainian energy minister Vladimir Demchishin, who visited Kolomoisky from Ukrtransnafta, got a more convincing explanation, because he decided against calling the police to oust Kolomoisky from the building. Sevgil Musaeva, editor of Ukraine's most popular news website, Pravda.com.ua, quoted a Ukrainian official as saying Kolomoisky told Demchishin that if needed he could bring 2,000 volunteer fighters to Kiev, "because enterprises are being taken away from him."
/---/
It would now be natural for Poroshenko to fire Kolomoisky as governor. "The country received a challenge yesterday," Nayyem wrote in a blog post. Failure to respond, he said, would show Ukraine's creditors and allies that it is indeed "the failed state of which Vladimir Putin has been dreaming for many years."
/----/
Despite its pro-Western yearnings, Ukraine remains an oligarch-run country plundered for years by a small group of ruthless men. So far, the Ukrainian people have been unable to bring them down, choosing instead to back different sides in their disputes. That means last year's revolution isn't really over, and the best hope is for it to continue by peaceful means.