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 Multi-billionaire Rinat Akhmetov's miners and metalworkers joined
police on patrol on Mariupol on Wednesday, cleared barricades of
tires and pallets with diggers and heavy loaders and swept the
debris from the gutted City Hall, ending the turmoil unleashed by
the armed takeover of much of the region.
The city seemed to return to normal; traffic flowed and the men in
masks driven out by the army last weekend stayed away as police
teamed up with the unarmed workmen of Metinvest, the most powerful
company in the industrialized east.
Though largely symbolic, the scene showed the extent to which the
crisis has come to threaten the interests of Ukraine's richest man
and the lengths he will go to protect them.
Akhmetov, whose fortune is estimated by Forbes magazine at $11.4
billion, has acquired almost feudal status in the industrial hub of
Donetsk in the past 20 years - but the separatist rebellions there
have altered the dynamics of power.
As pro-Russian rebels declaring independence seized public buildings
across the steel and coal belt which is the basis of his colossal
fortune, he issued repeated written statements in support of a
united Ukraine.
But the media-shy 47-year-old Akhmetov, who has a workforce of
300,000 people on his payroll in the Donbass, has to tread carefully
around local sensitivities and has avoided specifically condemning
the action of the separatists.
The rebels' 'declaration' of an independent Donetsk region on
Monday, however, and their appeal for Russian annexation pose a
major threat to Akhmetov's holdings and his fortune.
With no response from Moscow, the prospect of the Donetsk region
joining the likes of Moldova's Transdniestria or Georgia's Abkhazia
as largely unrecognized statelets, operating in a legal and
diplomatic limbo, can hardly sit well with a business empire built
on exports.
"No one wants the Donetsk region to become some kind of grey zone
unrecognized by the world. That would be very painful for us," said
Yuriy Zinchenko, general director of Mariupol's Ilyich Iron and
Steel Works, part of Metinvest, majority-owned by Akhmetov's System
Capital Management.
Metinvest supplies more than 100 countries, he told Reuters, and
export routes could be threatened if decisions about the future of
the east were taken outside the law.
"That's clear not just to us, to our group, its leadership and
individual companies, but to the workers too," he said. "That's more
300,000 employees and their families - that's a huge army."
It is an army both the pro-Russian rebels and the government in Kiev
would be rash to ignore.
"PASSIVE NEUTRALITY"
Independent analyst Volodymyr Fesenko said Akhmetov has now
recognized that his earlier passive tactics did not work in his
favor as the rebellion has continued to grip the region.
"He has understood that his tactic of passive neutrality no longer
works. He will have to become an active intermediary between
separatists and the government," Fesenko said.
Sending unarmed workers from Metinvest, Akhmetov's main metals
exports and mining conglomerate, to join patrols with police is not
the only sign that the oligarch has decided to take a bolder line to
protect the future of his business empire.
Akhmetov, who emerged as head of a private business empire out of
violent gang wars in the east in the 1990s after the collapse of the
Soviet Union, normally shuns media interviews and public
appearances.
But in a new departure for him on Wednesday, the usually camera-shy
oligarch made a four-minute video for Ukrainian TV channels in which
he declared: "I strongly believe that Donbass can be happy only in a
united Ukraine".
He threw his weight behind the Kiev government's plan to devolve
more powers to the regions to provide greater autonomy and undercut
separatist demands which Kiev fears will lead to the break-up of
Ukraine.
Soccer-mad, he owns the FC Shakhtar club, with its flying
saucer-like stadium and star-studded multinational squad. He made
headlines three years ago by buying a $200-million London apartment.
But in the violent upheaval of the past five months, the overthrow
of his ally, Moscow-backed President Viktor Yanukovich, the shooting
dead of more than 100 people in Kiev by police, Russia's annexation
of Crimea and now separatist rebellions in the east, have made
Akhmetov's wealth and status count for less.
In the capital Kiev, well away from his eastern stronghold and the
popularity it assures him of, Akhmetov has always had a chequered
reputation because of his past support for Yanukovich.
He is a persona non grata on Kiev's Maidan - Independence Square -
which was the crucible of the mass action that drove Yanukovich from
power and where protesters still hold sway.
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Just recently, some spray-painted windows of the Kiev headquarters
of System Capital Management, his holding company.
And anyone walking past the Kiev city centre building site of a
shopping mall Akhmetov is renovating can still see the shadowy
outline of graffiti painted on canvas. One piece of graffiti reads:
"Rinat, are you with Ukraine or with the Kremlin?"
He has realized the time to act to re-establish himself is now -
before it's too late. "Akhmetov does not play a key role in the
Donbass at the moment. This is really important," said Inna
Bohoslovska, a politician who once belonged to Yanukovich's Party of
the Regions.
"At the beginning he tried to influence events to try to get it
under control to strengthen his position, but then he lost all
control."
KEY TO FATE OF REGION
Mariupol, a major port with mines and steel works that account for a
significant part of the region's industrial output, has changed
hands several times over the past two weeks, from the rebels who
seized city hall to the military that cleared them out but
immediately withdrew to the city edges.
Metinvest appeared to fill the void on Wednesday, clearing the
streets to allow traffic to flow and offering to pay for the
reconstruction of a police station strafed and burned in an assault
by the army on what it said were pro-Russian militants.
Metinvest said its patrols with police would be expanded to other
towns where the company has operations. It has urged the army to
stay out.
Control of Mariupol is key to the fate of the Donetsk region and the
ambitions of the separatist gunmen. Thousands of people turned out
here on Sunday to cast votes in a referendum on self-rule, many of
them saying they sought autonomy but not necessarily divorce from
Kiev.
Pro-Russian separatist leaders took that as a mandate the next day
to declare Donetsk a sovereign state and, following Crimea, seek
accession to Russia, which has yet to respond.
A test of how far Kiev still holds sway here will come on May 25,
when it tries to hold a nationwide presidential election and draw a
line under months of turmoil. As things stand, the vote will go
ahead in Mariupol, with Akhmetov's apparent consent.
Both sides are courting him. "We meet now and again," Denis
Pushilin, the self-declared leader of the would-be Donetsk republic,
told Reuters when asked about his contacts with Akhmetov.
But Metal baron Sergei Taruta, the Kiev-appointed governor of the
Donetsk region, said Akhmetov was not on the rebels' side: "You can
see what role he's playing by what's going on in Mariupol. His
workers are fighting against what's happening there."
"We'll demonstrate in Mariupol how to hold a fair election," he told
a news conference on Tuesday.
As his workers stacked tires and swept the streets under a hot sun,
Zinchenko said the company and Akhmetov spoke as one.
"We favor a united, whole Ukraine, a strong Ukraine with Donetsk in
it. Everyone agrees power needs to be decentralized. But I repeat,
that must be within a united state."
One worker, Nikolai, echoed the company line. "Thanks to the
Metinvest leadership for bringing out the people, together with the
police, in bringing order back to the city," he said, declining to
give his second name.
Yet Fesenko wondered if Akhmetov has missed his moment.
"He has become more active. For the first time he has spoken out
more concretely in the past few days. But the question is: Is it too
late?" the analyst said.
"It will be difficult for him to influence the situation given what
has happened in the past two weeks."
(Additional reporting by Natalya Zinets and Pavel Polityuk in Kiev,
Elizabeth Piper in Moscow; writing by Matt Robinson and Richard
Balmforth; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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