Soros ‘stuffed Naftogaz with own people’, says pro-government media

George Soros has stuffed the management of Naftogaz, one of Ukraine’s biggest companies, with his own people, daily Magyar Idők said on Saturday.

The paper cites a recording of a recent conversation revealing ways the US financier used his influence in Ukraine to promote his own business interests.

The paper said an undercover reporter talked to Yevhen Bistritsky, a former leader of Ukraine’s Open Society Foundation, who cited a specific case to illustrate the ways in which Soros had gained influence in Ukraine.

“Naftogaz: this is a large energy company … we helped them transform the company … and we changed it,” the former Open Society official is cited as saying to the undercover reporter.

Naftogaz, one of Ukraine’s largest state-owned companies, is soon to be privatised. Earlier Forbes magazine said all the company’s managers owed their positions to Soros’s lobbying, the paper added.