Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

Ukraine Nationalizes an Oligarch's Losses

Now taxpayers will be on the hook for the country's biggest bank, bled dry by its owners.

Now it's their problem.

Photographer: SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty Images
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Only one private bank in Ukraine was considered too big to fail, and on Sunday night, the Ukrainian government announced that it would be nationalized. The losses, however, are essentially being passed on to Ukrainian taxpayers; oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky and his partner Gennady Bogolyubov, the owners of Privatbank, have long since bled it dry.

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