Friday, July 4, 2014

Richest Ukrainian Dodges Crossfire on $13 Billion Tightrope - Bloomberg

Each day at noon, hundreds of thousands of factory workers in Ukraine’s rebel hotbed pause as sirens blare for three minutes, a behavioral tool Rinat Akhmetov is using to help guard the country’s largest fortune.

The daily signal of defiance against pro-Russian militias and pay raises throughout his companies are just some of the measures the billionaire is taking to rally support for the national government in the Donbas industrial basin, where the majority of his 300,000 workers live. Most of them backed the revolt when the fighting began three months ago. Not anymore, according to company officials.

“Now 99 percent of the workforce correctly understands the events that are happening and supports the principle that Donbas is part of Ukraine,” Enver Tskitishvili, who runs the Azovstal mill, a unit of Akhmetov’s Metinvest steel producer, said in his office in the port city of Mariupol. Donbas, the heart of the Soviet coal industry, covers the Donetsk and Luhansk regions along Ukraine’s border with Russia.

Akhmetov, worth $13.2 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, is walking a fine line between officials in Kiev who deposed his former ally, Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukovych, and secessionists in their native Donetsk who now call him “enemy.” For weeks, Akhmetov, 47, kept out as separatists seized buildings and claimed autonomy. Then in May he declared his opposition to the uprising and vowed to help end it. His efforts may prove critical to the efforts of Ukraine’s new president, Petro Poroshenko, to re-establish control.

Complete story at - Richest Ukrainian Dodges Crossfire on $13 Billion Tightrope - Bloomberg

CC Photo Google Image Search Source is upload wikimedia org  Subject is 5 Hryvnia 2005 back

Especially loved this comment:

After reading this tribal excrement I knew Henry Meyer's name would be at the top.

"The average wage at Metinvest, which produced 12.5 million tons of steel last year, or about a third of the country’s output, is 5,264 hryvnia ($450) a month, about 53 percent more than the national average, according to the company"

Russian *pensions* paid in Crimea are now $285/month, fully 64% of a "high" factory wage, to put the horror of Ukrainian wages under criminal oligarchs like Akhmetov in perspective. If anyone thinks the tribal bankers who orchestrated the coup in Ukraine care any more about the 99% in Ukraine than they do the 99% in the U.S., they are sadly mistaken.

End comment:

That means that the average monthly salary in Ukraine is about what a retiree in Crimea makes.

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