The editors of the Ukrainian edition of the Forbes magazine summed up the results of 2022 and published a list of the richest Ukrainian entrepreneurs of wartime.
The rating now consists of 20 names, instead of the traditional hundred, and the leading positions were taken by representatives of the Ukrainian IT cluster, such as Max Lytvyn and Alex Shevchenko with the Grammarly online platform, although in the past, they were in the third ten.
At the same time, from the list of the richest and most successful entrepreneurs in Ukraine, Forbes removed Mykola Udianskyi, the founder of world-popular crypto exchanges Coinsbit and Qmall Exchange.
Last year, this representative of the Ukrainian crypto industry, a Kharkiv businessman who has mainly lived in Dubai for several years, ranked 59th in the list of the richest businessmen in Ukraine with a fortune of 180 million. However, he has lost his position in the main Forbes ranking, as the magazine explains, due to business problems.
In contrast, Forbes editors assigned Udianskyi a place in another “team” of Ukrainian businessmen, together with Kolomoyskyi, Medvedchuk, Fursin, Boguslaev, and others. All of them are united by various hardships that arose during martial law.
“We have gathered businessmen who have a high chance of not getting into the rating if it was still created. The reasons are different: loss of citizenship, business troubles, and even betrayal of the motherland,” the magazine explained.
Information about the questionable character of Udianskyi's crypto projects has previously appeared on the web, but such texts didn’t last long. The entrepreneur himself also denied any accusations. Even in one of the interviews for Ukrainian YouTube, he said that all attempts to put him in an unfavorable light are just blackmail and harassment of a certain company that wants him to pay for stopping “internet bullying”.
In particular, it was about accusing the exchange in Coinsbit of fraudulent actions in 2021. The businessman called this information false, and later his press service announced that he sold a stake in Coinsbit back in 2019 and that now Udianskyi receives only a percentage of the exchange's net profit. Then there was a “misunderstanding” with another crypto exchange of Mykola Udianskyi, the Qmall Exchange. The project positioned itself as the first Ukrainian exchange regulated by the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the National Bank. However, both regulators denied this.
Mykola Udianskyi started his business in Ukraine, namely in the city of Kharkiv, but has long been outside the country. For the past few years, the entrepreneur has been living mainly in the United Arab Emirates, in Dubai, launching new projects there: among them are crypto startups and real estate projects. Also, according to Forbes, he owns dozens of properties in Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, and Ukraine, in the suburbs of Kharkiv. However, during the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation, some of Udianskyi's real estate objects in Kharkiv were seriously damaged. In particular, his private apartment, Tennis Club, and cottage village EVO.
Recently, the businessman for the first time in a long time appeared in Kharkiv at the official opening of the diplomatic mission of Romania, which he now will lead as an honorary consul. At a meeting with representatives of the Kharkiv authorities, the Dubai millionaire handed over 100 generators to the community and promised to develop economic relations with the regions of Romania.
At the same time, during the entire period of the full-scale war, Udianskyi published only two posts about Russia's aggression on his social networks, so his sudden activity in supporting Ukraine raises reasonable questions. Especially against the background of problems with the business, loss of position in the Forbes rating, and obtaining “consular immunity”.
