KIEV, July 13 (RAPSI) – Dnepropetrovsk Region Governor Ihor Kolomoisky plans to sue Russia over his investment in a company that owned Belbek airport, the Ukrainian oligarch, whom Russia’s Investigative Committee put on the international wanted list for crimes in Ukraine, said in an interview with Ukrainian channel 5 TV.

In the March 16 referendum on the status of Crimea, over 96% of participants voted to join Russia. A document to this effect was signed on March 18. The upper and lower houses of Russia’s parliament approved the treaty on the reunification of Crimea and Russia and a federal law on the establishment of two new federal entities in Russia – the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol. President Putin signed both documents into law on March 21.

Ihor Kolomoisky is one of Ukraine’s richest people whose personal wealth is estimated at $1.8 billion, according to Forbes. He said that “last week” he sent a letter to Russia proposing “an out of court settlement for the loss of a $15 million investment in a company that owned Belbek airport.”

In an unrelated case, a court in Russia recently issued a warrant for Kolomoisky’s arrest in absentia for the alleged financing of armed groups that have been taking part in the military operation in Donbas. Kiev launched a military operation in April to suppress the anti-Maidan movement in eastern Ukraine, which did not recognize the legitimacy of the February coup in Kiev. Moscow urged Kiev to stop “punitive military operations,” which have claimed many lives on both sides, including innocent civilians.

A criminal case has been opened in Russia against Kolomoisky and Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov under Russian articles on “the masterminding of murder, the use of prohibited methods and means of warfare, abduction, and the hindering of the legitimate activities of journalists.”
Belbek Airport near Sevastopol was mostly used by the military. In June this year, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev ordered the airport to start servicing passenger planes as part of Russia’s transport system.