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First came the text messages between FBI lovebirds Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, which gave us a painful glimpse at potential political bias inside America’s most famous crime-fighting bureau. Now, a series of “Hi Honey” emails from Nellie Ohr to her high-ranking federal prosecutor-husband and his colleagues raise the prospect that Hillary Clinton-funded opposition research was being funneled into the Justice Department during the 2016 election through a back-door marital channel. It's a tale that raises questions of both conflict of interest and possible false testimony. Ohr has admitted to Congress that, during the 2016 presidential election, she worked for...

Scores of armed pro-Russian separatists massed outside the walled home of Ukraine's richest man, Rinat Akhmetov, in the eastern city of Donetsk on Sunday as Ukrainians voted for a new president. The rebels, roundly denounced by Akhmetov, have prevented voting in Donetsk, an industrial hub of a million people, and other parts of mainly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, where they have declared "people's republics" outside Kiev's control. Coal and steel billionaire Akhmetov, known abroad as the owner of Shakhtar Donetsk soccer club, has urged people to vote and accused the rebels of "genocide" last week.

Metinvest, the steel conglomerate controlled by Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, said yesterday it had acquired West Virginia-headquartered United Coal Company, in a purchase estimated to be worth up to $1bn. Analysts said the deal showed some of Ukraine's leading businessmen were sufficiently cash-rich to make big purchases abroad in spite of a deep recession that has battered their country and halved production at their steel mills. Mr Akhmetov is Ukraine's richest man. The value of Metinvest's UCC purchase, closed between the two privately owned companies, was not disclosed. But local investment bank Dragon Capital estimated that the deal was worth...

DONETSK, Ukraine (AFP) — What's the difference between a Ukrainian and a Russian oligarch? They both lead lavish lifestyles, adore football, and have lost billions in the financial crisis. But unlike their now politically timid Russian counterparts, Ukraine's super rich are unafraid of meddling in politics and are seen playing a key role ahead of January presidential elections. Russian billionaires have steered clear of politics since several fell foul of the law under strongman ruler Vladimir Putin, including the now jailed head of the Yukos oil giant Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Their Ukrainian counterparts may be less well known outside the country...

Today, Mr. Yanukovich, 56 years old, is locked once more in a struggle for supremacy with the pro-Western Orange leader who beat him, President Viktor Yushchenko. But this time, the thousands of protesters occupying Kiev's Independence Square for the past month flew not orange, but the blue colors of Mr. Yanukovich's Party of the Regions, and the red and hot pink of his allies, the Communists and Socialists. They dispersed only when Mr. Yanukovich defused the crisis by agreeing to hold new elections -- for the second time in as many years -- after his rival dissolved parliament. ...one of...

ALMATY, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan's Prime Minister Danial Akhmetov has resigned, forcing the entire government to step down, a government source told Reuters on Monday. "The prime minister has resigned," the source said, giving no reason for Akhmetov's resignation. Kazakhstan, in Central Asia, is rich in oil and gas which it pumps mainly to the West.

Yesterday, officers of the crime detection department of Ukrainian Interior Ministry were anxious to talk face to face with Rinat Akhmetov, one of the richest men in the country. Akhmetov never showed up in the police on that day. His subordinates said the billionaire was abroad and there was no way to get in touch with him. By strange coincidence, the previous foreign trip of Akhmetov also happened during the related probe of investigators, who, at that time, were digging into the Kolesnikov’s case. Akhmetov was to appear before the detectives at 11:00 a.m., July 18. Instead of the billionaire,...

resident Viktor Yushchenko and the new government of Ukraine headed by Yulia Timoshenko are not planning to confine themselves to reprivatizing the Krivorozhstal steel works. The day before her appointment, Timoshenko announced that companies of the level or type of Krivorozhstal would be subject to return to state ownership. This may apply to several mining companies acquired mainly by Donetsk businessman Rinat Akhmetov. During his election campaign, President Viktor Yushchenko named Krivorozhstal when talking about reprivatizing companies that in his opinion had been illegally sold. He also recalled Ukrtelecom and the Odessa Port Factory, which Viktor Yanukovich's government had only...

Ukraine will reverse the controversial sale of state-owned steel mill Kryvorizhstal so that the firm can go back on the market at a higher price. Kryvorizhstal was sold to a group of investors that included the son-in-law of former President Leonid Kuchma. The winning bid in the privatization was $800m (£429m), and Ukraine rejected higher offers from foreign companies. Prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko said her government was cancelling "illegal" decisions by the former administration. "All documents which the former government approved illegally have been cancelled," Ms Tymoshenko said. "This means that we have begun the process of turning Kryvorizhstal back...

Ukraine’s authorities have confirmed plans to review the results of privatization. Last week, a Kiev court began considering a case over the privatization of the country’s largest metal works, the Krivorozhstal steel company, Vremya Novostei has reported. Yesterday, the court imposed a freeze on a 93.02 stake in the company. The freeze is designed to prevent the current owners of the company – Donetsk-based oligarch Renat Akhmetov, and Viktor Pinchuk, a deputy of Ukraine’s lower parliament chamber and son-in-law of ex-President Leonid Kuchma, - from selling the stock to affiliated companies. According to the newspaper, the court hearing is scheduled...

A Kiev court on Thursday froze shares in Ukraine's largest steel mill, which was sold last year to a group that included former President Leonid Kuchma's son-in-law in one of the country's most-criticized privatization deals. The court ordered that the consortium that purchased the Krivoryzhstal steel mill "should not release, sell or deposit shares" pending the end of court proceedings, Ukrainian news agencies reported. Kuchma's son-in-law Viktor Pinchuk, coal and steel tycoon Rinat Akhmetov and others make up the consortium that bought the mill for US$800 million (euro665 million). Court officials could not immediately be reached for comment. The ruling...

(AP) - A Kyiv court opened proceedings Jan. 21 on whether to annul the privatization of Ukraine's largest steel mill, which was sold for $800 million (665 million euros) last year to a group that included the president's son-in-law. The court proceedings were proposed by a parliamentary commission and a lawmaker loyal to President-elect Viktor Yushchenko, and underlined expectations that the new administration will re-examine some of Ukraine's murkiest business deals. The Krivoryzhstal steel mill was sold by the state to coal and steel tycoons Rinat Akhmetov and Viktor Pinchuk, the son-in-law of outgoing President Leonid Kuchma, despite reported higher...

In the past, Ukrainians often referred to Western democracies as “civilized,” with the inherent implication that post-Soviet Ukraine was not. The “Orange Revolution,” which led, on 26 December, to the victory of the opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko in rerun elections has opened the door for Ukrainians to a new, “civilized” future. The results suggested, though, that many Ukrainians do not accept either that the West is civilized or that the Ukraine of President Leonid Kuchma was uncivilized (or both). The preliminary results in the final round showed Ukraine almost as deeply divided as the fraud-marred earlier rounds had suggested. Yushchenko...

Ukraine minister's death could have been murder disguised as suicide Whether the death of Ukrainian Transport Minister Heorhiy Kyrpa on 27 December was suicide or murder disguised as suicide is less important than the reasons behind it, according to an article by Oleksandra Prymachenko in the Ukrainian weekly Zerkalo Nedeli. Just like the banker Yuriy Lyakh, who was found dead in suspicious circumstances last month, Kyrpa knew a lot about the criminal activities in which many leaders of the outgoing administration reportedly engaged. This made him a liability to outgoing President Leonid Kuchma and his other close associates and a...

The violent death of Georgy Kirpa, the Ukrainian transport minister, whose body was found in his bath-house, is a grim reminder of the brutal underside of the country's public life. Kirpa, who died of a gunshot wound, was a close associate of Leonid Kuchma, the outgoing president, and, like many in Mr Kuchma's inner circle, a wealthy businessman. Aged 50, Kirpa played a key role in the rigging of the disputed presidential election by organising trains on which the authorities transported people to vote illegally at multiple polling stations. Prosecutors, who believe Kirpa shot himself, are examining the possibility that...

When I visited Ukraine in 1992, I ate every day in the canteen of Dynamo Kiev football club. It was one of the only restaurants in Kiev. Admittedly it was lacking in Michelin stars: when the club president's secretary passed through one day carrying an electric kettle, it felt like the difference between Them and Us. But at no other football club have I felt closer to a nation's centre of power. The stadium's forecourt, scene of a famous recent murder, was always full of Mercedes and skinheads wearing tracksuits. One day a club official told me over a beer...

...The oligarchs have another fear: that a Yushchenko victory could push them out of the inner circle of power and perhaps force a review of controversial privatization deals under which the clans acquired huge state-owned industrial facilities, sometimes for hundreds of millions of dollars below market value. Yushchenko's campaign has made its position clear. "When you see a country that's been turned into a limited joint stock company that's controlled by a handful of people, this is something we can't accept," Oleksandr Zinchenko, a key Yushchenko lieutenant, said in an interview this year. "The system requires radical change." Akhmetov, a...

UKRAINE’S outgoing president, Leonid Kuchma, is trying to negotiate a deal that would guarantee him and his family immunity from prosecution in return for satisfying opposition demands over the rerunning of elections on December 26. As jubilant supporters of Viktor Yushchenko, the opposition leader, partied on the streets of the capital Kiev last night to celebrate the success of their historic two-week campaign to annul the result of last month’s presidential vote, it emerged that Kuchma is locked in frosty talks to secure his own future. Presidential sources said Kuchma, 66, a former Communist party boss, is seeking assurances he...

The decision to order a re-run of Ukraine's presidential election threatens the clique of shadowy business tycoons who sought to influence the result of the poll. The call by the supreme court on Friday for a fresh contest has dealt a heavy blow to the businessmen who tried to block the victory of the pro-democracy candidate Viktor Yushchenko. It also spells near certain defeat for the Kremlin consultants who attempted to ease Viktor Yanukovich, the prime minister, into power. A handful of Ukrainian oligarchs tried to manipulate the vote as Moscow stepped up its campaign to dictate the fate of...

Outgoing president Leonid Kuchma is threatening a collapse of the Ukraine economy to pressure the opposition. But really it's the country's industrialists and Kuchma's own policies that are to blame. Millions flow into their pockets each day. Thirty-seven-year-old dental technician Igor Brodan is married and has two children. He lives in Trostanez, a city 400 kilometers northeast of Kiev, where one of the major employers is a chocolate factory. One would think a job there would be sufficient to put meat and potatos, a bottle of vodka and some sweets on the table -- albeit with a lifetime supply of...