Viktor Pinchuk, one of the "Business oligarchs" who control post-Communist Ukraine, is the son-in-law of ex-President Leonid Kuchma. Poland's weekly Wprost ranked him Central and Eastern Europe's 12th richest man, with a fortune of $1.5 billion. The second richest Ukrainian businessman, he is a member of the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, and owner of the ICTV television company that controls three TV channels. He was a founder of its most popular tabloid, Fakty i Kommentarii.

Pinchuk is a parliamentary spokesman for one of the three regional political-industrial lobbying groups, the Dnipropetrovs'k group. (The others are the Donets'k group associated with the separatist movement in eastern Ukraine, and the Surkis-Medvedchuk group based in Kyiv). Its party, Labor Ukraine , has about 40 parliament seats and is led by the Chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine, Serhiy Tyhypko . Pinchuk dismisses the widespread belief that he heads the Dnipropetrovs'k "Clan", one of Ukraine's most powerful and secretive business networks, or that he represents its interests as a member of parliament.

Born to Jewish parents who moved to the industrial town of Dnipropetrovs'k after being denied the right to study in Kyiv, Pinchuk started out as a metallurgical engineer specializing in the production of pipes. He says he "quickly became a relatively rich man for Soviet times". He still controls Interpipe Corporation, a holding company for Novomoskovskiy Pipe Plant, Nicopol Ferroalloy Plant, Nizhnedneprovsky Tube Rolling Plant, Nicopol Pipe Plant, Dnepropetrovsk Pipe Plant and other metallurgical companies. He was in a position to profit from the privatization of Kryvorizhstal , a major Ukrainian steel plant, in a process that was widely criticized, once the details emerged.

The Austrian public relations firm that he retains, according to Ukrainian media, was also the source circulating reports, stated to emanate from the Rudolfinerhaus hospital and reported by Reuters, denying the dioxin poisoning of presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko.

External links

• GlobalSecurity.org: Ukraine political parties; Carnegie Endowment assessment in 2004
• Our Ukraine Newsletter: reformist iopponents of Pinchuk's party
• Build Ukraine Newsletter