POLITICO Europe quotes Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center Resident Senior Fellow Anders Aslund on the foiled homecoming of Dmytro Firtash, one of Ukraine’s most powerful oligarchs, and the implications of the government of Ukraine preventing him from returning to the country:
If Kiev continues to block Firtash from returning to Ukraine, that would make it very difficult for him to protect his assets, which could reduce his political power.
“You can’t defend your property in a country like Ukraine without being there,” said Anders Aslund, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “[Firtash] and Sergey Lyovochkin, who are business and political partners, have a substantial number of parliamentarians on their side. This is the biggest oligarchical faction in the Ukrainian parliament. It’s quite important for deoligarchization if the politically most influential oligarch can’t enter Ukraine.”