Ukrainian oligarch dmitry firtash ukraine

Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash, who has been accused of links to the Russian mob, has lost his gas empire, according to the chief of Ukrainian state energy giant Naftogaz.

"Deoligarchization. This term was talked about a lot in the gas market, but here in Ukraine, the group of [oligarchs] Firtash [led] for almost two decades had dominated.

Now, this is coming to an end," Naftogaz CEO Yuriy Vitrenko said at a press briefing on Tuesday.

Vitrenko said that currently, nearly all household consumers—or 97.6 percent—receive gas from Naftogaz directly, making the company a monopoly in Ukraine's retail gas market.

"There is no intermediary between us in the form of the Firtash group, which has never been a real supplier, but was an intermediary who did not bear the risks that real suppliers usually bear, in the European sense of the word," he said.

Vitrenko told reporters that Firtash's regional gas companies will soon move to Naftogaz.

"[Naftogaz] will actually have m