Serhiy Kurchenko

Serhiy Kurchenko was born in 1985 and made his career in a truly American style. At the age of 16 he started working for the Ekspogaz company. Within two years he was promoted from the position of a messenger boy to a deputy of a business manager. According to the official biography at least. In 2009, he created a group of companies called Gaz Ukraine 2009, which included 55 firms. The next successes of the young businessman took place during the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych. In 2012, he took over a football club Metalist Kharkiv from the businessman Oleksandr Yaroslavsky. In 2013 Kurchenko took over the Ukrainian Media Holding (the publisher of Ukrainian version of magazine Forbes and the popular weekly ‘Correspondent’). Almost all editorial office left the job as a sign of protest. He is accused of being a part of the so-called Family - a close environment of Yanukovich, which controlled a large part of Ukraine’s business. After Yanukovych loss in February 2014, Kurchenko escaped to Russia, where he runs his business. Some experts say that his companies operate in the controlled by pro-Russian fighters’ republics in the Donbass.