In his new interview for Ukrainian ‘Forbes’,  Denys Maluska said the recently adopted ‘anti-oligarch’ law is not  targeting ‘sparrows’ but ‘big fish’.

‘Let’s just look up the names of those who top  the Forbes list. Rinat Akhmetov meets all the [oligarch status] criteria – he has businesses, media, assets, partners in the parliament. Ihor Kolomoysky has the same background. Petro Poroshenko has assets and is a politician, though his ownership of media [companies] is in question’.

The justice minister argued attempts by Poroshenko to dodge curbs of the new anti-oligarch law by his media assets’ transfer will not help him get off the hook.

‘I don’t know who is a new owner of Prymyi and 5 Kanal [TV channels earlier owned by Poroshenko]. The anti-oligarch law has a wide [criteria] wording. You don’t have to be a direct owner as you can have influence over media through other people,’ said Maluska.

The new policy has been closely watched by the Ukrainian public and media, added the minister, noting that probable ‘99%’ of decisions over oligarch status restrictions will be taken to the Supreme Court,  which will require of the state officials to offer ‘100% evidence’ allowing to rein in people tagged as oligarchs