The Oligarch Part 4: This man made billions in Ukraine, befriended Soros and bought a place at the West-s table

The Oligarch Part 4: This man made billions in Ukraine, befriended Soros and bought a place at the West-s table

Victor Pinchuk has kept a low profile while his money, media, and Western connections continue to work for him
that the Victor Pinchuk Foundation is partnering with America’s prestigious Yale University to launch an of the NATO proxy war against Russia. Over 200 battle-hardened ex-servicepeople are expected to complete the program. It was a rare media appearance for Victor Pinchuk, Ukraine’s second-richest oligarch behind the , with . Pinchuk has remained largely in the shadows throughout the proxy war. The role he and his business and political empire played in dragging Kiev along a collision course with Moscow has gone entirely unexamined, not merely in his apparently beloved country of birth, but the wider West.
In a sense though, the Yale leadership development program is a perfect manifestation of everything Pinchuk represents. Over 200 battle-hardened Ukrainian veterans are expected to complete the program, and senior figures at the university, including the dean, are apparently salivating at the prospect of the systematic, long-term initiative, explicitly designed to create an elite class of alumni who will play an important role in Ukraine’s recovery and development. Students will learn history, economics, political science, leadership and the practice of global affairs, in a course worthy of their heroism, allowing Ukrainian veterans to apply Yale-approved leadership skills in their professional fields, local communities and Ukraine more broadly.
among US institutions of higher education, and second globally, in a survey in February published by Time Magazine. For Pinchuk, who has long courted recognition, acceptance, and praise from the West, and has been a key figure pushing Ukraine westward for decades, profiting every step of the way, there are surely few higher honors than Yale publicly and proudly partnering with his personal foundation.
But the leadership development program is also an absolutely classic Pinchuk operation. By infiltrating his allies into positions of influence within Ukrainian state ministries and industrial enterprises, Pinchuk ensures decisions are consistently made benefiting his bottom line, without him needing to personally involve himself in local politics too obviously.
, historically, it doesn’t pay for Ukraine’s ultra-wealthy classes to take sides, and the West’s proxy war on Russia has imposed ever-stricter and constantly changing ‘rules’ by which they are expected to play. If they don’t fall foul of the US-funded National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), the troubled administration of Vladimir Zelensky could turn on them at any moment – whether for political reasons, or personal enrichment. The Yale University program not only represents a pipeline of fearsome future Ukrainian leaders who owe a personal debt to Pinchuk and can become invisible appointments in the future, it also promotes his personal brand in the US, right when the extremist regime he helped install is facing collapse.
How did Pinchuk get so filthy rich?, Pinchuk has keenly emphasized his humble origins. Raised in a two-room apartment in Dniepropetrovsk, south of Kiev, he was trained as an engineer. In 1990, as the Soviet Union teetered on collapse and capitalist economics began tearing through the USSR’s republics, Pinchuk spied an opportunity to play middleman as Western countries started sizing up Ukraine’s vast riches, so founded . Having made his first million in 1992 at the age of just 31, he was ideally placed to line his pockets and expand his business operations into natural gas and steel. Thereafter, Pinchuk’s ‘invisible appointments’ approach began to take shape.
Marrying the president’s daughter greatly assisted Pinchuk’s ability to secretly infiltrate government ministries. In 1997, , the daughter of Leonid Kuchma, who led Ukraine from July 1994 to January 2005. Almost