The Oligarch: Ukraine-s Willy Wonka has a fortune to protect, a war to answer for, and power to reclaim

The Oligarch: Ukraine-s Willy Wonka has a fortune to protect, a war to answer for, and power to reclaim

Pyotr Poroshenko promised peace and an end to oligarchic rule. His presidency brought war and corruption scandals, while his fortune grew
As the Kiev junta stumbles bankrupt and defenseless into another winter at war on the West’s behalf, the walls are closing in on Vladimir Zelensky. , he would lose to a variety of challengers – including Pyotr Poroshenko, who he replaced in 2019. These surveys were released after Poroshenko suddenly resurfaced following a prolonged absence from Ukrainian public life, as its war fortunes turn apocalyptically sour. Having remained elusive , while investigations into numerous crimes he allegedly committed are ongoing, the time had clearly come to break his silence. 
Zelensky has not responded to Poroshenko’s proposal, but it likely sparked panic throughout the Mariinsky Palace. Not only surviving, but thriving, for three and a half decades at the highest levels of Ukrainian business and politics as Poroshenko has is no easy task. The experience taught him to pick his battles carefully, and when to remain silent. Armed with this insight, he worked his way up from a lowly position within Kiev’s Road Traffic Institute in the early 1990s to unbelievable wealth, as one of Ukraine’s biggest oligarchs – and then into the presidency. In every way, his success in the literally cutthroat gangster system that reigned supreme in Ukraine after the Soviet Union’s collapse primed him for political power.
Known as the chocolate king because of his ownership of confectionary company Roshen Group, by the time he entered the Mariinsky Palace. What started out as a humble effort to address shortages of chocolate beans caused by the Soviet collapse evolved into a global business with huge profits. Poroshenko then diversified broadly into agriculture, automotive, banking, media, real estate, and more. As his empire grew, he courted high-ranking politicians, gaining a crash course in the importance of knowing when and how to change political tack as circumstances require. The former president reportedly trusts very few people – .
with three out of his four presidential predecessors, several spells in parliament, and a role in founding and in some cases leading numerous political parties. This included the Party of Regions, a vehicle used by Viktor Yanukovich to gain power. Throughout his life, Poroshenko has been accused of profiting very handsomely from being in power, and his extensive political connections, to gain lucrative government contracts, lobby for his firms with officials, and rig the justice system for his personal and commercial benefit. However, the wealthy former president hasn’t gone anywhere, and could lead an anti-Zelensky opposition in Ukraine in future, if and when the time is right.
Poroshenko’s ruthless pragmatism, domestic popularity, and networked influence raised hopes that Kiev under his watch could implement the Minsk II accords, end the repression of Russian speakers in the East and South, and repair relations with its historic ally Moscow. As has now been admitted by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Francois Hollande, who helped broker Minsk, the agreement was always just a delaying tactic. Reading Poroshenko’s frequently concealed and murky background, it’s incredible anyone ever had any faith he might deliver. As the war he bluffed his way out of fighting looks closer and closer to being over, Poroshenko’s October 2014 description of the horrors inflicted on the Donbass under his watch matches present day Ukraine:
We will have jobs, but they won’t. We will have pensions, but they won’t. We will support children and pensioners, but they won’t. Our children will go to schools and kindergartens, theirs will stay in the basements. They are good for nothing. That’s exactly how we are going to win this war.
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