Ukraine’s most wanted – an interview with Dmitry Firtash

If you’ve heard of Dmitry Firtash, the odds are you’ll have the impression of a deeply controversial man. He was arrested in Austria in 2014 at the US government’s request on charges of ‘conspiracy to bribe’ in India. A warrant was then issued for his arrest in Spain. Last year, Firtash was sanctioned by Ukraine over claims that he was selling titanium products to the Russian military. In America, he has been called ‘Ukraine’s most wanted’. In Britain, he gave £4 million to Cambridge University and spent much more on other projects, and has since been held up as a classic example of an oligarch buying his way into our establishment.

When we meet in Vienna, Firtash insists that all of this is nonsense, the result of a politically motivated campaign by the US government. The money-laundering charges have been thrown out by the Spanish courts. An Austrian court initially refused to hand him over to the US but the Supreme Court has since ruled against him.