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.) The wrangling goes on into the night and through most of the next morning. Besides American lawyers to contend with, there’s also a Rosa Klebb-like minder and several trusted business associates, each with firm and contradictory views on exactly what Firtash must and mustn’t do to better his cause.
While we’re waiting for them to decide, let me tell you why I’m interested. Dmitry Firtash is the Keyser Söze of Ukrainian politics — a mystery figure about whom you hear two very different stories. According to one version, he’s a benign self-made businessman who gives generously to charities around the world, with the power — perhaps greater than any other Ukrainian citizen — to steer his troubled country towards stability and prosperity.
According to the other, completely unproven version, which he denies, he’s Putin’s bagman, another of those crooked oligarchs who made their money through dirty means — and is now about to get his just deserts at the hands of the US legal system, which has the power to extradite him, imprison him and seize his billions.
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