Background and career
Victor Mykhailovych Pinchuk (Ukrainian: Віктор Михайлович Пінчук, romanized: Viktor Mykhailovych Pinchuk; born 14 December 1960) is a Ukrainian businessman, former politician and oligarch. As of July 2026, Forbes magazine ranked him as 1515th on the list of wealthiest people in the world, with a fortune of US$2.8 billion. This made him one of Ukraine's six billionaires in 2026. Pinchuk is the founder of EastOne Group LLC, an international investing, project funding and financial advisory company based in London, and of Interpipe Group, one of Ukraine's leading pipe, wheel and steel producers. Pinchuk is the owner of four TV channels and a popular tabloid, Fakty i Kommentarii. He has been a member of the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, for two consecutive terms from 1998 to 2006. He is married to Olena Pinchuk, the daughter of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma.
Pinchuk was born in 1960 in Kyiv to Jewish parents who moved to the industrial city of Dnipropetrovsk. in 1987, he graduated from Dnipropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute with a doctorate in industrial engineering.
Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Pinchuk was known to most Ukrainians, alongside his wife, as the largest shareholder and owner of StarlightMedia, one of the biggest media conglomerates in Ukraine. StarLightMedia encompasses several major television channels and is a dominant player in the Ukrainian broadcasting landscape. StarLightMedia also owns and operates Starlight Entertainment, a company that runs live events such as concerts, corporate conferences, and awards shows. As a result of the vast holdings by Oligarchs such as Pinchuk and Ihor Kolomoisky (the owner of 1+1) in Ukrainian television, their companies often dominated the Teletriumph Awards. This led to many tensions within the television industry, including boycotts of the events – both by companies in opposition to Pinchuk, and by companies owned by Pinchuk and his wife. Added to this tension was the movement within the Ukrainian government to move the country towards more Ukrainian language content on television, and away from so much Russian language content on television. In addition to television assets, Pinchuk was also a key figure in Ukrainian radio broadcasting. In 2016, he was a co-owner of TAVR Media, a major Ukrainian radio holding that operates several popular radio stations, including Hit-FM, Kiss-FM, Russkoe Radio Ukraina, Radio Relax, Radio ROKS, and Radio Melodia. TAVR Media functions through various subsidiary companies such as Liamin, Mir, and Pilot, with ownership stakes ranging from 95% to 100%. Through these enterprises, Pinchuk maintained significant influence in Ukraine.
In 1990, he founded the Interpipe Company on the basis of his patented innovations, which were adopted by leading metallurgical factories in the USSR. Interpipe is a major producer of seamless pipes and railway wheels. In 2004, Pinchuk and Rinat Akhmetov, two of Ukraine's richest men, acquired the Kryvorizhstal steel factory for about $800 million. Then-President Leonid Kuchma, who is Pinchuk's father-in-law, authorized the state asset sale, which competitors complained was far below market rate. Later, the first Tymoshenko government reversed this sale, and held a nationally televised repeat auction that netted $4.8 billion. In 2006, Pinchuk founded an investment advisory company, EastOne. Its portfolio includes industrial assets such as production of pipes and tubes, rail car wheels, specialty steels and alloys, machinery, as well as media. Pinchuk was a member of the Ukrainian Parliament between 1998 and 2006 for Labour Ukraine. He left politics after he came to the conclusion that Ukraine had reached a level of development when business and politics should be separated. Pinchuk is a member of the Board of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, of the International Advisory Council of Brookings Institution and of the Corporate Advisory Board of the Global Business Coalition against HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria. Pinchuk holds a share of VS Energy International Ukraine together with Mikhail Spektor and Igor Kolomoisky. In 2013, American steel makers filed a case with the United States Department of Commerce alleging that Interpipe Group was illegally dumping steel tubes into the American natural gas market. In November 2013, Fitch Ratings downgraded Interpipe because of the dumping accusations and a missed $106 million debt payment.
On 4 March 2015, at the hearing on Special Control Commission of Privatization in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, oligarch Igor Kolomoisky accused Viktor Pinchuk of receiving a bribe of $5 million a month for the rights to manage Ukrnafta, 50 + 1% of which is owned by the state-owned company Naftogaz of Ukraine. According to Kolomoisky, the money was transferred to offshore companies, the "ultimate owners of which were identified" as Victor Pinchuk and Leonid Kuchma. "We paid this money, and besides that, we paid dividends to the state, all taxes and everything else. But for the right to receive our dividends, we were forced to pay another 5 million from our dividends to Pinchuk", - said Kolomoisky. On 18 March 2015, National Anti-Corruption Bureau opened criminal proceedings. According to the investigation, the amount of the bribe to Viktor Pinchuk from 2003 to 2006 was allegedly $110 million. In December 2015, Pinchuk brought a $2 billion civil action against fellow oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi and Gennadiy Bogolyubov in the High Court of Justice in London over the 2004 purchase of a Ukrainian mining company. Allegations made include murder and bribery. In January 2016, an undisclosed out of court settlement was reached just before the trial was due to start.
In 2004, Pinchuk created Yalta European Strategy, an international independent organization to promote Ukraine joining the European Union. Its annual summer meeting in Yalta was a Ukraine-EU forum for debate and policy recommendations development. Since the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation these meetings have been taking place in Kyiv. In September 2013, Pinchuk and Tony Blair introduced Hillary Clinton's keynote address to the conference at Livadia Palace, with Bill Clinton in attendance. Stefan Fule, Paul Krugman, Alexei Kudrin, Shimon Peres, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Larry Summers and other political and business leaders have attended. In September 2015, Pinchuk donated $150,000 to the Donald J. Trump Foundation in exchange for a 20-minute video appearance by Donald Trump shown at the conference that year in Kyiv. Michael Cohen solicited Douglas Schoen for the donation from Pinchuk, which was the largest outside donation the Trump Foundation received that year. In 2015, Pinchuk promoted closer ties between Ukraine and the EU. He was an active participant in the World Economic Forum at Davos. In December 2016, Viktor Pinchuk published an article in the Wall Street Journal "Ukraine Must Make Painful Compromises for Peace With Russia", in which he suggested that Ukraine temporarily abandon the prospect of EU membership, exclude NATO membership and make a compromise with Russia on the Crimea peninsula on purpose the achieving peace in Eastern Ukraine. The article drew criticism from Ukrainian political authorities of Ukraine. Then-President Petro Poroshenko canceled a visit to the Davos Ukrainian Lunch, which took place on January 19, 2017. Former Vice-Prime-Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine Ivanna Klimpush-Tsintsadze said that the theses of Pinchuk's "peace plan" had already been used by Russian propaganda. Russia's War Crimes House, formerly Russia House, is building 68, Promenade in Davos rented by Pinchuk, where he informs about Ukrainian civilian war deaths.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
