Photo: mob.org
Staff report with contributions from Joe Lindsley
Ukrainian oligarchs and businessmen are leaving Ukraine on charter flights. On February 13 alone, about 20 charters and private planes took off from Kyiv. This number of charters has not been observed for six years. This was reported by UE.
Planes connected to Renata Akhmetov, an MP before the Euromaidan Revolution and founder of System Capital Management, and Borys Kolesnikov, leader of the political party Ukraine is Our Home, founded only in May 2021, took off from Ukraine on Sunday. Kolesnikov later clarified that he did not leave the country, and his plane flew to Prague for maintenance. But Akhmetov left Ukraine on January 30 on a flight to Zurich. On the same day, businessman Viktor Pinchuk, a former MP who owns four tv channels and is founder of a London-based financial firm, left Ukraine.
Private board for 50 people was also ordered by millionaire Igor Abramovich, who currently is an MP in Ukraine’s Rada (Parliament); the Kharkiv native is in the Opposition Platform–for Life, the largest pro-Russia party in the Rada. According to information from people who were offered to leave, the plane was to take relatives of fellow party members and Abramovich’s business partners from Kyiv to Vienna.
Businessman and MP Vadym Novynsky left Ukraine 10 February on a flight from Kyiv to Munich. He is a protodeacon of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Moscow Patriarchate, which the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople (Istanbul) refuses to acknowledge as having jurisdiction over Ukraine. A native Russian, he was given Ukrainian citizenship in 2012 by pro-Moscow Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who in the 2014 Revolution of Dignity fled to Russia.
Also on 10 February, Oleksandr Yaroslavskyi left, according to his office, to London for a family event and then to a ski resort somewhere for vacation from 12-19 February. En route to the airport, his motorcade knocked a man to death. A former MP in the early 2000s, he owns the bank UkrSkibbank and is the president of the Metalist football club in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second biggest city, 20 miles from Russia. In November 2018, Russia imposed sanctions on him.
Yesterday, February 13, businessmen Andriy Stavnitser and Vadym Nesterenko left Ukraine, the day before – Vadym Stolar and Vasyl Khmelnytsky, both previously affiliated with the pro-Russia Party of Regions; the latter voted to restrict free speech rights during the Euromaidan Revolution.
The press service of Stavnitzer said that he flew on a business trip and will return to Ukraine in a few days. And in the press service of Khmelnytsky reported that he flew with the team to study and will return on February 20. They added that the trip was planned for three months and Khmelnytsky’s children remain in Ukraine.
We will remind, on Sunday the flight of the Ukrainian airline SkyUp which flew from the island of Madeira to Kiev, made forced landing in Chisinau, Moldova. As explained by the company, on 12 February, the airline’s lessor – based in Ireland – announced an immediate ban on flying in the airspace of Ukraine. The airline with the Embassy of Ukraine in Moldova organized a transfer for 175 passengers to Kyiv.
After that, the People’s Deputy Oleksiy Honcharenko announced the possible cessation of air traffic in Ukraine from 16:00 on February 14. However, the Ministry of Infrastructure denied this information, assuring that the sky over Ukraine remains open.
In the evening of February 13, the government allocated UAH 16.6 billion at an extraordinary meeting to try to guarantee the continuity of flights in the airspace of Ukraine, as airline’s insurance carriers have begun to report they will not permit flights over Ukrainian airspace. KLM, the Royal Dutch Airline, has suspended all flights to Ukraine.
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