Petro Poroshenko – an oligarch and politicianPoroshenko – a man who always manages to do things / Channel 24
Why does Petro Poroshenko need 2,5 tons of money and what kind of repression does he fear?
In the spring of 2020, the newly revived Ukrainian edition of Forbes magazine was subjected to a massive attack. The attack targeted the ranking of Ukraine's richest people, specifically the third position, which belonged to MP and professional politician Petro Poroshenko, with a net worth of $1,4 billion. 24 channel.
A large group of internet trolls from the fifth president's support team demanded a retraction from editor-in-chief Vladimir Fedorin, which drove the media manager to the brink of hysteria.
He spent a long time explaining in interviews and on social media how the president of a country at war could so spectacularly increase his fortune (from 560 million in 2016 to 1,4 billion in 2020), talked about the calculation methodology, and even promised that Poroshenko would soon appear on Forbes' global billionaire ranking.
No one listened to Mr. Fedorin: the newly minted billionaire's press service labeled the editor-in-chief of the respected publication as an agent of President Zelenskyy's influence, and the InfoKomsomol members continued to raid the editor-in-chief's Facebook page.
Poroshenko's "return to the billionaire rankings," when he "got rich" by hundreds of millions of dollars in just the last days of May 2020, is a special operation aimed at discrediting the opposition leader. A key role in this operation was played by a member of the political council of the Movement of New Forces and a VIP campaigner for Volodymyr Zelenskyy during the 2019 presidential campaign. This is a classic example of fake news. Petro Poroshenko hopes that this fake news will no longer be disseminated by reputable media outlets.
– Poroshenko’s press service wrote with pain at the time.
Soon, Forbes, the global publication, confirmed the information from his Ukrainian daughter, and Petro Poroshenko was forced to come to terms with his status as a billionaire and oligarch. Naturally, no one apologized to Ukrainian journalists for the hounding, and so the final stages of the decision-making process proceeded quietly and without unnecessary fanfare.
The surprise and even outrage of Poroshenko's supporters is understandable, given that he's been a politician for 25 years and, logically, has no time for business. But no, Petro Oleksiyovych is like that Caesar – he takes on several projects simultaneously and succeeds. Financially.
The fact is, Poroshenko isn't really a politician at all; he's remained a businessman. He's simply using his time in power, which he's held since Kuchma's time, to cover up his business ventures. In other words, he's an oligarch.
So, he served Yushchenko and was his main "dear friend," didn't get lost under Yanukovych, and served as a minister in order to stay in power—he welcomed the Kharkiv agreements and explained how good it is to be friends with Russia. Subsequently, Poroshenko himself became president and was able to scale up his business and attract his junior partners. Gladkovsky, Kononenko and others to new schemes, not forgetting about offshore companies, and also finding time for luxury vacations. And a "blind trust" has nothing to do with it—Petr Alekseevich is simply such a talented person who always manages to keep up and is always successful.
In 2019, Poroshenko claimed he had never lost an election. And that's certainly true, as he's now back in power – this time as a people's deputy and the de facto leader of an influential parliamentary faction and a small but aggressive support group, the so-called "street." Thanks to this, Petro Poroshenko's business is thriving, and he himself is growing richer every year.
As of 2021, Petro Poroshenko had resigned himself to his fate and no longer denied his billionaire status (and had even become $200 million richer). But he still managed to surprise. In his online declaration, the politician declared an amount of cash unheard of even for Scrooge McDuck.
It turns out Poroshenko holds $51,2 million and 423,3 million hryvnias in cash, which amounts to over 1,8 billion hryvnias in hryvnia equivalent. For a better understanding, we'll break this down into figures: 1,800,000,000.
Assuming the former Ukrainian leader's family keeps only $100 bills in American currency, that's 512 kilograms of dollars. As for hryvnia, measured in $200 bills, that's over two tons. Thus, Petro Poroshenko keeps over 2,5 tons of cash somewhere at home.
It's physically difficult to imagine such a quantity of money. Transporting and storing it is equally difficult, as it requires enormous safes. And the warehouse Walter White used in "Breaking Bad" would be too small for this kind of storage.
It's also hard to imagine what kind of army is guarding all this property: given the amount involved, it must be something like the squad from the blockbuster "Army of the Dead." Nothing less.
The explanation for the politician's exit into cash also turned out to be fantastic.
Poroshenko was forced to withdraw $51 million and 423 million hryvnias from his bank accounts due to the government's political repression and its ongoing attempts to seize the opposition leader's assets. All these funds will be returned to the bank after the political repression ends.
– Poroshenko’s press service stated in response to a request from Radio Liberty.
The press service declined to specify the specific repressions and who they targeted, but it appears they were referring to a business partner of former President Viktor Medvedchuk. During Poroshenko's presidency, Putin's godfather and former top adviser to Kuchma managed to emerge from the shadows and even attained oligarch status. Not as wealthy as Petro Oleksiyovych, but still an oligarch.
Poroshenko granted Medvedchuk economic preferences, making him a de facto monopolist in the diesel fuel market, and returned him to the media, enabling him to become a television mogul. In response to justified criticism regarding Medvedchuk's praise, Poroshenko throughout his presidency spoke of forced necessity, explaining the Russian agent of influence's prosperity by saying that otherwise "Putin would attack."
In 2021, the new president closed shop, and the National Security and Defense Council shut down Medvedchuk's propaganda channels and imposed sanctions against him. Poroshenko, too, was terrified of the closure of his propaganda channel, "Pryamiy," so he decided to reassign it from Makeyenko, the figurehead with a shady past, to himself. Thus, Petro Poroshenko became the official employer of a significant cohort of ideological front workers. And he is forced to officially pay them, not as before.
Author:
Oleg Tereshchenko
FILE: Petro Poroshenko: Biography and the Truth About Ukraine's "Chocolate King"
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