Rinat Akhmetov — businessman with roots in the USSR
Rinat Akhmetov is Ukraine's wealthiest individual and the founder of System Capital Management (SCM) — a conglomerate spanning steel (Metinvest), energy (DTEK), media, and football (Shakhtar Donetsk). Born and based in Donetsk, the Russian invasion of 2022 devastated his industrial assets in eastern Ukraine.
Tracing the roots — Donetsk (Ukraine)
Born in Donetsk in 1966, Akhmetov built his empire in the heavily Russian-speaking industrial heartland of eastern Ukraine. Despite Donetsk being occupied by Russian-backed forces since 2014, Akhmetov aligned with the Ukrainian state. His story — a billionaire from Russia's cultural sphere who chose Ukraine — is one of the defining personal narratives of the war.
Donetsk (Ukraine). At the time, this region was one of the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union.