Just over three years ago, when I was editor of Varsity, Cambridge’s student newspaper, we ran a story documenting how Dmytro Firtash was using his Cambridge connections to bring libel charges to British courts. Here’s an extract:
‘A billionaire donor to the University of Cambridge has filed a libel lawsuit against a Ukrainian paper, the Kyiv Post, citing his donations to the University as one of the reasons he has chosen to pursue the case through the British courts.
Dmytro Firtash, a gas-trading oligarch with strong connections to the President of Ukraine, has donated on a number of occasions to the University to help fund Cambridge Ukrainian Studies, based within the University’s Department for Slavonic Studies.
His most recent donation was in October 2010, when he donated £4.3m to fund the creation of two permanent academic posts central to the Ukrainian Studies programme.
On July 2 2010, the Kyiv Post, Ukraine’s leading English-language publication, published an article online about Ukraine’s natural gas sector.
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