Who is Dmitry Firtash? Can he solve Ukraine’s troubles? And why is he currently under effective house arrest in Vienna, awaiting extradition on corruption charges to the US, with his bail set at a whopping €125 million?
None of these questions has a simple answer — and when I fly to Austria to meet him it’s not even clear if I’m going to ask him. Firtash appears to be up for it, as far as can be ascertained via his barrage of minders, advisers, security and hangers-on. But his expensive American lawyers most definitely aren’t. It might jeopardise his case, they’re saying. Firtash mustn’t say a word about anything.
‘Who do they fucking think they are?’ says one of Firtash’s PRs. ‘I hate American lawyers,’ says another, from a different agency. (Firtash has three different firms representing him: a) because so much is at stake, and b) because, being worth several billion, he can afford it.)
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