Dmytro Firtash

Dmytro Vasylovych Firtash (Ukrainian: 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." 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. 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.