Ukrainian oligarch Kolomoyskyi faces charges in audacious contract murder plot

Ukrainian prosecutors have reported that oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi is suspected of organizing a contract killing. The man is in custody due to large-scale financial machinations.

The prosecution did not directly inform who was involved. However, an anonymous photo of the suspect, in which the well-known oligarch was easily recognizable, was attached to the notification.

Former journalist and former deputy Serhiy Leshchenko revealed that the case concerns Kolomoyskyi ordering the murder of lawyer Serhiy Karpenko, who refused to follow the oligarch's orders in a dispute around the Dniprospecstal company in Zaporizhzhia - reported the Interfax-Ukraine agency.

The prosecution stated that Kolomoyskyi had ordered the killing of members of a gang that specialized in such contracts, who then attacked the lawyer, severely injuring him with a knife. The man survived the attack.

In September 2023, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) informed Kolomoyskyi that he and a group of others are suspected of embezzling more than 310 million GBP (equivalent to over 254 million USD) belonging to the PrivatBank he previously controlled.

Previously, a court in Kyiv ordered Kolomoyskyi, one of Ukraine's wealthiest businessmen, to be placed in custody for two months. The oligarch remains in custody to this day.

Kolomoyskyi supported the current head of state, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in the Ukrainian presidential elections 2019. After the oligarch's arrest, the president declared that Ukraine would be a country with different rules in the future and that there would be no indulgences for those who put themselves above all laws and regulations.