Dmytro Firtash

Dmytro Vasylovych Firtash (Дмитро́ Васи́льович Фі́рташ; born 2 May 1965) is a Ukrainian businessman who heads the board of directors of Group DF.

He was highly influential during the Yushchenko administration and the Yanukovych administration.

As a middleman for the Russian natural gas giant Gazprom and with connections to the Kremlin, Firtash funneled money into the campaigns of pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine.

Firtash obtained his position with the agreement of Russian president Vladimir Putin and, according to Firtash, Russian organized crime boss Semion Mogilevich.

His many roles during the Yushchenko administration included: presidency of the Federation of Employers of Ukraine (FEU), an interest association of industrial enterprises that he chairs; chairmanship of the National Tripartite Social and Economic Council (NTSEC); co-chairmanship of Domestic and Foreign Investors Advisory Council under the Ministry of Education, Science, Youth and Sports of Ukraine; and membership in the Committee for Economic Reforms under the President of Ukraine.

The United States Justice Department has characterized Firtash as an "upper-echelon [associate] of Russian organized crime."

Firtash was born on 2 May 1965 in Bohdanivka, Zalishchiky Raion (Ternopil Oblast), Ukraine, Soviet Union.

His father Vasyl (Василь) was a driver and his mother Mariya Hryhorivna (Марія Григорівна) had two degrees (economics and veterinary medicine) and worked at a livestock farm and then a sugar mill as an accountant.

Since the 1990s, the village has been called Synkiv.

Firtash began his business career almost immediately after completing his military service.

He founded a trading company in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, eventually moving to Moscow in the early 1990s.

He gained control of former state-owned titanium assets across Ukraine in 2004 and also owns several chemical plants under his Group DF which he formed in 2007.

In 2007, a private international group of companies, Group DF ("the Firtash group of companies") was formed to consolidate Firtash's business assets in different sectors.

Presently, Group DF incorporates assets in the chemical industry, energy sector and real estate, and this consolidation effort is still underway.

Firtash had sold various channels to Khoroshkovskyi's U.A. Inter Media Group Ltd in June 2007 while consolidating other business interests.

Firtash owns seven television channels as well as an influential Kyiv-based Ukrainian News Agency.

In 2008, Firtash was involved with a firm owned by Paul Manafort in a $895 million project to redevelop the Drake Hotel in New York City into a spa and luxury mall to be called Bulgari Tower.

According to court records, Firtash's firm had planned to invest $100 million in the project.

The deal was never finalized.

Nadra Bank had gone into default in 2009, but it has since restructured its foreign debt with significant write-offs.

Firtash became one of the leading investors in the power sector and chemical industry in Central and Eastern Europe.

His plants and companies are present in Ukraine, Germany, Italy, Cyprus, Tajikistan, Switzerland, Hungary, Austria and Estonia.

In 2010, Firtash launched an effort towards consolidation of the Ukrainian nitrogen business.

From September 2010 to September 2011, Firtash acquired ownership in 'Concern STIROL' (Horlivka), 'Severodonetsk Production Association Azot' and 'Cherkassy Azot'.

In just over a year, the joint marketing strategy of the four fertilizer manufacturers owned by Firtash substantially strengthened its domestic market position.

Firtash is co-owner of RosUkrEnergo and controls much of the Ukrainian titanium industry.

In May 2011, Firtash took over Nadra Bank (at the time Ukraine's 11th largest bank).

Firtash was elected President of the Joint Representative Body, a joint representative agency of employers at the national level, on 29 November 2011.

Firtash bought back 100 percent of InterInter Media Group Limited from Valeriy Khoroshkovskyi on 1 February 2013, for his GDF Media Limited.

The Commercial Court of Zaporizhzhia Oblast ruled that Firtash had not fulfilled its 2013 obligations to the State Property Fund of Ukraine to invest 110 million US dollars in the modernization of the plant.

At the end of May 2022 26 Ukrainian regional natural gas distribution companies, most of which were controlled by Firtash, were transferred to the management of a daughter company of Naftogaz.

(Prior to this transfer) Firtash's regional distribution companies delivered 70% of natural gas to its customers in Ukraine.

He was arrested by Austrian authorities in March 2014 and has since been in Vienna fighting extradition to the United States, where he is under federal indictment for an alleged bribery scheme.

In April 2014, Firtash stated that despite the difficult conditions of doing business during Ukraine's political crisis, Ostchem enterprises, part of Ostchem Holding The investments directed to the development and modernization of Ostchem enterprises allowed significant increases in the production capacities of Rivne Azot, Stirol Concern, and Crimea soda plant in the first quarter of 2014.

In February 2014, the British Ministry of Defence sold the disused Brompton Road tube station to Firtash, who planned to convert the site into residential flats.

the property remained undeveloped because (according to his lawyer) Firtash "could not travel from Vienna to London due to a U.S. extradition request."

On 18 June 2021 the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine imposed sanctions against Firtash because allegedly his titanium business aided the "military-industrial complex of the Russian Federation."

On 4 August 2021 the previously Firtash-owned Zaporizhzhia Titanium-Magnesium Plant was returned to state ownership.

Firtash is also cited as having part ownership of SCL Group and thus Cambridge Analytica through various shell companies, by the U.S. documentary Active Measures, in its breakdown of the Russian–U.S. relationship before and after the 2016 election.

American attorneys Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing, associates of then-president Donald Trump and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, were hired by Firtash in July 2019 to fight his extradition, as Giuliani sought information in Ukraine to damage Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.