Austrian-based Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash considers the Russian invasion of Ukraine a “colossal mistake” and the “beginning of[president Vladimir]Putin’s own catastrophe.” The Russian president finally managed to do what no Ukrainian politician could: unite the country. But the oligarch has also completed an excavation in Austria.
“Since Ukraine’s independence, no Ukrainian politician has managed to unite the country as Putin did — against Russia’s interests and against his own,” Firtash said in Ö1’s Morning Journal on Monday.
Firtash, who was also said to be close to the Russian president, emphasized that he had never met Putin. The oligarch also couldn’t resist an excavation in Austria: “Austria was no less friendly than me. And I didn’t dance with him at a wedding.”
Concerns about second Syria
“In eastern Ukraine most people speak Russian, and Putin now mainly bombs eastern Ukraine and kills people who were more pro-Russian,” Firtash said. The oligarch reiterated that he was against NATO membership and for Ukraine’s neutral status. “I said in 2014 that if Ukrainian politicians continue to implement the policies that the Americans want, we will become a second Syria. And we have become a second Syria, but at the same time a united country.”
Firtash, who also manages TV channels in Ukraine, said he recently set up a Russian-language TV channel in Warsaw with 250 employees. “The channel we launched in Poland is mainly intended to let the Russians know what is really happening in Ukraine. They access the channel through YouTube, so they don’t just get propaganda information from Russian state television.”
Firtash is stuck in Austria
Firtash has been in Austria since the US requested his extradition from Austria in 2014. The cause is linked to alleged bribe payments in a titanium deal that never materialized in India. After the extradition was declared admissible by the Supreme Court (OGH) in the summer of 2019 and the then Justice Minister Clemens Jabloner also gave the necessary approval, a reopening request from Firtash’s lawyers at the Vienna Regional Court (LG) initially prevented the Ukrainian is not transferred to the US.
Firtash’s lawyers recently filed a complaint against the regional court’s rejection of the request for a new trial.
Source: Krone
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