his fortune, including steel, energy and agricultural assets. Overall, the invaders have destroyed about 70 companies owned by Rinat Akhmetov. In February 2023 all of Akhmetov's assets in Russian occupied Donbas were confiscated. The local Russian installed authorities justified this by declaring Akhmetov a "rogue individual." Political activity Akhmetov has been noted as a financier and unofficial leader of the Party of Regions political party. Following the Orange Revolution, Akhmetov was pivotal in arranging a lasting relationship between his employee and close friend Paul Manafort and defeated presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovich. In a September 2007 diplomatic cable released between prominent Ukrainian business partners Serhiy Taruta, Vitaliy Haiduk, and U.S. ambassador William Taylor, Taruta alleged that Akhmetov had in 1997 persuaded Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma to appoint Viktor Yanukovych governor of Donetsk oblast, who then made Haiduk his deputy. Akhmetov's spokesperson refused comment on the matter, and Haiduk denied the conversation taking place. Akhmetov was elected as a member of Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada (parliament) during the 2006 Ukrainian parliamentary election, as a member of the Party of Regions. Akhmetov was reelected during the 2007 parliamentary election, again as a member of the Party of Regions. He only appeared once in the Verkhovna Rada building during his inauguration. Leader of the party's faction in the Verkhovna Rada, Oleksander Yefremov, has mentioned that Rinat Akhmetov provides "substantive support" to the faction by providing what he referred to as "functioning expert groups he established that are counseling on draft laws". In December 2011 Akhmetov announced he was not going to participate in the 2012 parliamentary election. U.S. diplomatic cables revealed that Akhmetov posted $2 million bail in 2007 for the release of three members of the Party of Regions, including former Sumy Governor Volodymyr Shcherban, who was accused of election rigging, extortion, tax evasion and abuse of office. Reaction to the south-eastern conflict in Ukraine Akhmetov has denied claims made by Pavel Gubarev (self-proclaimed "People's Governor" of the Donetsk People's Republic) in an interview published in the Russian state-controlled newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta on 12 May 2014. "Pavel Gubarev alleges that I bribed two thirds of the activists. I am firmly stating that I have never given and will never give anyone even a cent of bribe", replied Akhmetov. According to Gubarev, Akhmetov has financed the separatist movement in the region, and that the separatists "all took money" from Akhmetov and others, saying that "As