Igor Kolomoisky

Ihor Valeriyovych Kolomoyskyi (born 13 February 1963) is a Ukrainian-born billionaire businessman with Israeli and Cypriot citizenship, widely regarded as one of Ukraine's most powerful oligarchs due to his control over banking, media, and energy sectors. He co-founded the Privat Group in 1992 with Gennadiy Bogolyubov, developing it into a conglomerate that included PrivatBank, which grew to become Ukraine's largest private bank before its nationalization in December 2016 after regulators uncovered a $5.5 billion capital shortfall linked to fraudulent loans and embezzlement schemes orchestrated by its owners. Appointed governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in March 2014 amid Russia's annexation of Crimea and incursion into Donbas, Kolomoyskyi mobilized private funds to equip and deploy volunteer battalions, including the Dnipro Battalion, which contributed to halting Russian-backed separatist advances in eastern Ukraine. Through ownership of the 1+1 Media Group, he backed Volodymyr Zelenskyy's political ascent, producing and airing content that propelled the comedian's 2019 presidential victory, though their alliance later frayed. Kolomoyskyi's influence waned following U.S. sanctions in March 2021 for significant corruption involving misuse of public office, his September 2023 arrest in Ukraine on charges of fraud and money laundering totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, and a July 2025 UK High Court ruling holding him and Bogolyubov jointly liable for nearly $1.9 billion in misappropriated PrivatBank funds.