The grinding war in eastern Ukraine is grabbing global headlines again as President Barack Obama weighs the merits of providing the Kiev government with U.S. weapons and European leaders make a new stab at compromise with俄罗斯总统普京. 但乌克兰拥有一种非正统的国产武器，它可能在未来扮演更重要的角色：亿万富翁商人伊霍尔科洛米斯基。
在基辅杂志去年秋天的一项调查中，以23亿美元的净资产位列乌克兰第三大寡头诺沃耶夫雷姆亚,Kolomoisky controls PrivatBank, the country’s largest commercial bank, as well as industrial companies, oil and metals concerns and consumer goods and services such as airlines and television. For many years he ran his empire largely from Switzerland. But after the February 2014迈丹革命,he went home to an appointment from then-acting President Oleksandr Turchynov to one of the nation’s hottest seats: governor of his native Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, a Russian-speaking territory that borders the conflict zone in Donetsk province.
但分析人士担心，这位亿万富翁的爱国精神可能会给乌克兰带来高昂的代价。在一场慢动作的冲突中，基辅和莫斯科在实际问题（如天然气运输）上的激烈言辞与合作交替出现，科洛莫伊斯基似乎在不遗余力地煽动激情。
Although Ukraine’s military struggled in the face of separatist attacks last summer, Kolomoisky organized and paid for a private army of sorts, the Dnipro Battalion, which helped hold the line with thousands of troops. An official of the pro-Russian separatist group Donetsk People’s Republic paid Kolomoisky’s troops a grudging compliment,讲俄语版的福布斯magazine“他们是亲政府力量中最有组织、最有动力、最具侵略性的”。
作为一个半隐士，尽管他担任公职，但这位寡头充分利用了与外人的罕见会面，在他的讲话中充斥着淫秽的言辞，并用虾喂养在私人办公室水箱里的宠物鲨鱼。在担任乌克兰州长的第一次电视采访中，他将普京形容为“身材矮小的精神分裂症患者”。科洛米斯基的得力助手、副州长根纳迪·科尔班最近警告在乌克兰持有房产的俄罗斯投资者说，“要害怕。你知道我们的才能。我们会找到你的去处和方法。”
Although Dnipro and other local militias are supposedly subject to the command of the national Ministry of Internal Affairs, Kolomoisky remains the effective boss of his crack troops, observers say. “His battalions do not really report to the Ukrainian Army commanders,” an official at an international lender in Kiev comments. “This potentially presents a problem for Ukraine.”
A more concrete concern is how Kolomoisky leverages his role in national affairs to defend his own business interests, which could undermine Ukraine’s plans for economic reform. Never shy about playing at national politics, the governor emerged as a key financial backer for Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s party, Popular Front, in parliamentary elections last October. In Ukraine’s ever-fractured landscape, the party took 82 of 450 seats, but Yatsenyuk managed to retain power via coalition building.
科洛米斯基和政府改革者之间的第一场战斗围绕上游石油垄断企业Ukrnafta展开。该州拥有该公司58%的股份，但科洛莫伊斯基的Privat集团通过其42%的少数股权行使有效控制权。乌克兰法律要求召开股东大会的法定人数为60%。
总部位于基辅的投资银行Dragon Capital的能源分析师丹尼斯•萨卡瓦（Dennis Sakva）表示，在Privat的宗主权下，Ukrnafta表现严重不佳，至少部分原因是它以优惠的条件向Privat控制的分销商销售石油和天然气。尽管布伦特原油价格在9月接近每桶105美元，11月仍高于每桶80美元，但该公司报告称，2014年第三季度亏损7000万美元。Sakva说：“这表明要么是管理效率低下，要么是有意将利润转移到Ukrnafta之外，转而投向第三方。”。该公司从2011年到2014年没有向资金紧张的乌克兰政府支付任何股息。
The new parliament moved to rectify this situation despite Kolomoisky’s influence, passing a law reducing the quorum at Ukrnafta to 50 percent. That should allow the government to call an annual general meeting and clean up management, but Privat so far has the measure tied up in the courts. And Ukrnafta is just one point of intersection between Kolomoisky’s interests and the state’s. PrivatBank is sure to be leaning on Ukraine’s central bank amid the chaos afflicting the country’s financial system. Ukraine International Airlines, which Privat Group bought in a 2011 privatization, will be looking to defend routing monopolies.
如果说科洛莫伊斯基到目前为止在乌克兰打了一场“好”的战争，那么迈丹之前的乌克兰首富里纳特·阿赫梅托夫（Rinat Akhmetov）却没有。阿赫梅托夫的老家是顿涅茨克，他估计有124亿美元的财富是建立在煤矿和金属厂的基础上的，这些煤矿和金属厂横跨现在的前线。
作为被罢黜总统亚努科维奇的主要财政支持者，阿赫梅托夫拒绝与顿涅茨克分离主义者签约。相反，他撤退到政府控制的地区，组织他的钢铁工人在马里乌波尔（Mariupol）的街道上巡逻，马里乌波尔是一个战略港口城市，叛军已经围困了几个月。他把自己塑造成一个和平寡头，资助整个战区的食品和衣物发放，并寻求政治解决方案。“我们只有一个武器，谈判桌，”他去年夏天对乌克兰媒体说。
但阿赫梅托夫的外交努力赢得了冲突双方对他的蔑视。顿涅茨克叛军当局威胁说，如果他不缴纳被委婉地称为“税”的税款，就将把他的财产收归国有，而政府支持者则不信任他是令人憎恨的亚努科维奇的亲信。“当你表现得像寄生虫时，这将决定人们对你的态度，”乌克兰语杂志前编辑Oleksandr Romanenko说福布斯他现在在基辅发布自己的网站，Platfor.ma公司. 德拉贡资本首席政治分析师维克托·卢霍维克补充说，自革命以来，阿赫梅托夫在基辅政治中没有扮演任何明显的角色。他说：“他一直保持着非常低调的姿态，几乎从公众视线中消失。”。
Whatever assistance the U.S. and Europe may provide, Ukraine’s future as an independent state ultimately depends on its own resources — military, financial and moral. Ihor Kolomoisky has proved to be a resource no one expected at a critical time, while also threatening other resources for the future — one more challenge for a country that already has a full plate.
Get more onemerging markets.