Gennadiy Bogolyubov, in response to the question about his "friendship with Kolomoisky", in one of the numerous interviews of the MENOR channel , called his relationship with Igor Valeriyovych "a very serious karmic connection". Which is not surprising, given the fact that, in addition to joint business, the two Ukrainian billionaires are linked by sanctions and the threat of extradition to the USA.
While Ihor Kolomoiskyi is hiding from extradition in the SBU pre-trial detention center on Askoldovo, his long-time business partner Gennadiy Bogolyubov travels around Europe using yachts and a plane belonging to the "Privat" group.
In the context of the possibility of "free movement" of Bogolyubov, it is worth noting the fact that no one except Ihor Kolomoiskyi and Gennady Bogolyubov has information about the structure and exact size of the assets of the "Privat" group. And after the landing of Ihor Valeriyovych in the pre-trial detention center, Bogolyubov remains the only one who has all access and can freely dispose of assets.
Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov own a huge conglomerate, which is usually called the "Privat group" , although legally such a group does not exist. After the nationalization of PrivatBank in 2016, the so-called "Privat" group remained, in addition to large assets such as factories and GOKs, many anonymous offshore companies whose activities cannot be monitored, which means that it is impossible to arrest or seize them. In an interview with Ukrainian Pravda from 2010, Ihor Kolomoiskyi himself calls him and Bogolyubov the "Privat" group of companies a phantom.
And the "Privat" business began in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine. Among participants of the stock market, there is a "legend" that in the distant 90s, Kolomoisky, together with his partners, opened a securities registrar company with the lowest tariffs in the region. Of course, the majority of joint-stock companies have switched to servicing him. After some time, Kolomoiskyi and his partners conducted an audit of all companies served by their registrar, selected the most promising businesses, and then raided them, rewriting them to the new owner. This is how the rise of the Privat group began.
This story could have remained one of the "legends of the 90s" if not for a number of analogies with PrivatBank.
PrivatBank quickly became the largest bank in Ukraine thanks to a high level of service and low tariffs. Using the services of PrivatBank was comfortable and profitable, but later it turned out that the main shareholders Kolomoiskyi-Bogolyubov took billions out of the bank through loans, which put the bank on the verge of bankruptcy.
Ukraine was forced to privatize PrivatBank, including at the insistence of the IMF. At that time they said that PrivatBank was too big to go bankrupt. It is worth noting that in the High Court of London there are still trials between the already state-owned PrivatBank and the ex-owners Igor Kolomoiskyi and Gennady Bogolyubov . A decision in the case is expected closer to the summer of this year.
But the main problem of Gennadiy Bogolyubov and Igor Kolomoisky is the sanctions lists and courts in the USA, the state of Delaware. According to informed sources, the FBI took up Kolomoisky-Bogolyubov after the dilution of the share of their ex-partner, the famous Jewish philanthropist Vadym Shulman in Warren Steel Holdings LLC in August 2014, which Shulman actually confirmed in a large interview for Economic Pravda .
Subsequently, the American Themis, not without the participation of Shulman and his friends from the Atlantic Council , and taking into account the court hearings in the state of Delaware, already with the participation of the state-owned PrivatBank, decided to interpret the case of Kolomoiskyi-Bogolyubov as financial crimes: money laundering in the USA. Such a position allows not only the confiscation of all real estate of the Privat group in the USA, but also provides for the extradition of suspects.
According to one of the versions, popular among Ukrainian politicians, precisely because of the risk of extradition to the United States, Kolomoisky chose to "wait out" the hard times in the SBU detention center on Askoldovo. Meanwhile, Gennadiy Bogolyubov held a number of meetings, including in the interest of Ihor Kolomoiskyi. In particular, at the beginning of August 2023, Boguliubov met with Roman Abramovich in Israel. According to one of the versions, the topic of the meeting between Bogolyubov and Abramovich was an attempt to replay the situation regarding the extradition of Kolomoisky to the USA.
As for Gennady Bogolyubov himself, the "karmic ties" with Kolomoiskyi and the American Themis threaten him and his family members as well. In particular, many consider Bogolyubov's divorce from his wife Sofia to be fictitious, in order to protect the family from sanction pressure and confiscation of property.
At the same time, according to our sources from the President's Office, Andriy Yermak along with his London friends came to the rescue in a difficult situation for Bogolyubov: for the amount of 3 billion US dollars in assets, Gennady Bogolyubov will have time to solve difficult "karmic" situations. Yours and your partner's.
