Rinat Akhmetov

Rinat Leonidovych Akhmetov (born on 21 September 1966) is a Ukrainian billionaire and businessman.

He is the founder and president of System Capital Management (SCM), and is the wealthiest man in Ukraine.

As of April 2023, he was listed as the 460th richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of US$5.7 billion.

Akhmetov is the owner and president of the Ukrainian football club Shakhtar Donetsk.

In the 1980s, Akhmetov acted as an assistant to Akhat Bragin, whom law enforcement agencies regarded as a powerful crime boss, allegedly in the illegal cloth trading business.

Andrew Wilson, a scholar specializing in Ukrainian politics, categorized Akhmetov as an alleged former 'enforcer' and 'leader' of "[Akhat] Bragin's 'Tatar' clan", responsible for the use of "mafia methods to push aside the 'red directors' of the Industrial Union of Donbas (ISD)".

Details regarding Akhmetov's past, how he obtained his wealth after the fall of communism in Ukraine, and his activities between 1985 and 1995, remain controversial.

Akhmetov has stated in interviews that he successfully made risky business investments in the first years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

According to Hans van Zon, Professor of Central and Eastern European Studies in the University of Sunderland, "As early as 1986, Rinat and his brother Igor were involved in criminal activities.".

By the early 1990s, Akhmetov began acquiring property in Donetsk allegedly by means of extortion with the assistance of Volodymyr Malyshev, Lieutenant-General of The Head of Ministry of Internal Affairs Department in Donetsk Oblast.

Malyshev, now a member of Ukraine's Parliament on the committee controlling law enforcement, is accused by Kuzin of using his position to do away with previously existing police records concerning Akhmetov shortly before becoming chief of security for Akhmetov's company.

"In [the 1990s], Akhmetov was very different – he was totally private with no public persona, and was trying to find ways to deal with his 'difficult past'", noted U.S. ambassador William Taylor, citing prominent Ukrainian businessman Serhiy Taruta.

Further in that article cited the answer of the spokesperson for Akhmetov addressed to the Kyiv Post: "We don't know whether this phrase is authentic and what it actually means. Although, any accusations of Mr Akhmetov's involvement in criminal structures is slander."

In 1992, Akhmetov said he and two partners started a company called ARS, which processed coal into coke — a key material in producing steel.

Akhmetov said Bragin left ARS in 1993, but they remained close friends.

In October 1995, Bragin, president of Shakhtar Donetsk football club, was killed in a mysterious bombing along with six of his bodyguards at the team's stadium during a match.

Some rumours associate Akhmetov with the death of Bragin.

Following the assassinations, Akhmetov is said to have "inherited a vast financial empire from Bragin".

Akhmetov himself recalls that Akhat was a very close friend of him, his death was a big tragedy for him personally, and he narrowly escaped the explosion himself.

“Many say that the bomb detonated in the box (at the stadium).

It is a lie.

The explosion happened in the tunnel (leading to the box area),” he said.

“We arrived at the stadium together, five minutes late.

His car pulled up first, mine was second.

Because we were late, he left his car and rushed inside without waiting for me.

Akhmetov earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Donetsk National University in 2001.

From 2006 to 2007 and 2007–2012, Akhmetov was a member of the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada (parliament) for the Party of Regions.

Rinat Akhmetov was born in Donetsk, Ukrainian SSR, to a working-class family.

He is an ethnic Volga Tatar and a practicing Sunni Muslim.

His father, Leonid Akhmetov was a coal-miner.

His mother, Nyakiya Nasredinovna, was a shop assistant.

Akhmetov had an older brother, Igor, who also worked as a coal miner but had to resign due to work-related health complications.

Igor died on 24 January 2021.

In 2008, the Donetsk Appellate Court ruled that the book was a work of plagiarism.

The authors of the book, Borys Penchuk, Serhiy Kuzin and the Anticorruption Foundation, were obliged to pay ₴200,000 in compensation for a breach of copyright to Oleksandr Kuchinsky, the editor-in-chief of Criminal Express regional weekly and the author of The Chronicle of Donetsk Banditry book.

Serhiy Kuzin used the materials from those editions to write his own book.

In 2010, denied he inherited any money from Akhat Bragin or anyone else: "I have earned my first million by trading coal and coke, and spent the money on assets that no one wanted to buy. It was a risk but it was worth it".

Many publications in Ukraine and other European countries have made claims about Akhmetov's alleged "criminal past", some of which later retracted their statements.

In December 2022, in his interview to Washington Post Mr Akhmetov said: "I have never been involved with any criminal organizations, I have never been prosecuted and no criminal charges were pressed against me."

In his documentary book Donetsk Mafia: Anthology, Ukrainian author Serhiy Kuzin claims Akhmetov held the role of a 'mafia thug' in his early years.