Background and career
Viktor Leonidovych Nusenkis (Ukrainian: Віктор Леонідович Нусенкіс; Russian: Виктор Леонидович Нусенкис; born 3 March 1954) is a Russian-Ukrainian oligarch and businessman. He is the co-owner and chairman of Energo, a coal trading company in Ukraine, alongside Leonid Baysarov and Hennadiy Vasilyev. Nusenkis also acquired the Donetsk Metallurgical Plant, which he consolidated into "Donetskstal", which owns a number of plants and mines in Ukraine. In Russia, he also owns a number of enterprises under MPO Kuzbass, with its main subsidiary being the Coal Company Zarechnaya. Due to the scale of his holdings, he is considered part of the group of Ukrainian oligarchs, and in 2013 was the 6th richest person in Ukraine. In 2014, during the outbreak of the War in the Donbas, Nusenkis allegedly sided with the pro-Russian Donetsk People's Republic, and continued his enterprises in Donetsk and the Donbas.
Nusenkis was born on 3 March 1954 in Stalino in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union (now Donetsk, Ukraine) . He was the son of a worker, Leonid Isaakovich Nusenkis, and a teacher, Bella Markovna Nusenkis. Viktor, in the past, has said he is ethnically a Mariupol Greek, although others have disputed this account and instead called him ethnically an Ashkenazi Jew. He was named Viktor after his original name, over the originally chosen name of Aaron, due to Antisemitism in the Soviet Union, while his last name Nusenkis is a northern Russian surname from the Novgorod and Scandinavia area. After finishing secondary school, he pursued higher education and graduated from the Donetsk National Technical University. He then entered the workforce, working at the Batova mine in Makiivka as a district mine surveyor, assistant section head, and head of a tunnelling section. In the early 1980s, he was noticed by Mykola Surgai, the then first deputy minister of the coal industry for the Ukrainian SSR, who promoted him to chief engineer of that mine.
In 1985, when he was 31, he was appointed director of the Zhdanivska coal mine in Zhdanivka by Surgai, making him one of the youngest mine directors within the state. During his time at the mine, he nearly doubled the output within three years and began selling its coal directly instead of via Ugolsbyt. At the same time, he was appointed chairman of the Zhdanivka city executive committee (equivalent to mayor), with Nusenkis initially also closing the coal boilers there in favour of gas. In 1987, he founded another venture while retaining the directorship of Zhdanivska and the mayorship, which was called "Gornyak" and transported timber from Siberia in the Russian SFSR to Donetsk Oblast. Volodymyr Shubskikh quickly became his first business partner, with Nusenkis earning 100,000 rubles from "Gornyak" soon after, which he used to buy other companies like an Italian sausage company, a bakery, and a small furniture factory. After the start of the 1990s Donbas miners' strikes, which was part of the wider 1989 Soviet miners' strikes, Nusenkis's mine went on strike, and he responded by removing the mine from Artemugol's control and putting it under state oblast administration. He also initially supported the strikers, but still sold the mine's coal abroad. Although the strikes were still ongoing, Surgai proposed to Nusenkis creating a state-controlled association under the Ministry of Coal, MPO "DON", although it failed due to contracts.
In 1992, Nusenkis reorganised the failed MPO "Don" to create a concern called Energo, which was a firm that arranged with mines and plants to trade coal. Energo only became more prominent in 1993 during the end of the first 1990s Donbas miners' strikes, when it was involved in large deals during hyperinflation although it did not own any assets, such as its own mines, at this point. In the book Donetsk Mafia, Kuzin alleges that during the 1994-96 era Energo operated a scheme under Nusenkis and Yukhym Zvyahilsky in which the company bought coal from small mines for half the price, resold it at markup price, and said it was their own output from mines. Due to new competitors in the field, such as Rinat Akhmetov, Nusenkis decided to acquire assets for Energo, such as the Pokrovske coal mine in 1998, which he bought with profits from trade, the Yasynuvata coke plant, which he bought after repairing a coke battery there, and the Makiivka coke plant, which Nusenkis took over during bankruptcy proceedings. With the purchase of multiple coke plants, Energo was, at the time, the only coke exporter in Ukraine and by far the largest coke producer. In order to make a self-reliant chain for Energo, he also attempted to buy out Kryvorizhstal, and the metallurgical plant in Makiivka, but these attempts failed. During this time, Nusenkis was also joined at Energo by a number of people, including Hennadiy Vasyliev, his key associate, Volodymyr Lohvynenko, who briefly headed Energo in 1994, Leonid Baysarov, who was previously the director of the Pokrovske coal mine, and Konstantinos Papunidis, a Cypriot-Georgian who previously worked at Kredytpromblank and was a trustee of the Energo assets. In 1998, Energo also expanded into the Russian market, with Nusenkis sending Oleksandr Starikov to negotiate with Leninskugol over the ownership of Coal Company Zarechnaya. In order to do so, Energo invested 300 million rubles a year in Zarechnaya, with Nusenkis also moving to Moscow and obtaining Russian citizenship in 1999 in order to head the Russian market, while Vasyliev and Papunidis were left to head the Ukrainian market. By 2003, Energo controlled the following assets in Ukraine: the concern of Energo, the JV "SAVI", Dutch Indtec Finance B.V., Yasynuvata coke plant, Kredytprombank, Agrofirm Agrotis, the Maryinka feed plant, Regom, Pokrovske coal plant, "Kyivska Rus" shopping centre, Garant Polis, Panteleimonivka refractory plant, and Makiivkoks. The company also owned two mines in Russia, namely in the Kuzbass. In 2008, Energo tried to sell off Kredytprombank to the National Bank of Greece after Société Générale had earlier backed out, but the deal did not close. It was later sold to Mykola Lahun in 2012 for a symbolic amount of $1. The assets of Energo came into heavy dispute in the early 2010s, when the company built a number of offshore structures in Cyprus, with Papunidis as a trustee. In 2010, Nusenkis filed in Nicosia that he had the right to 100% of these assets, although Vasyliev said in 2011 that he owned 50% of the trusts. By then these assets consisted of 75 Ukrainian, 57 Russian, 23 Cypriot, and 37 other foreign entities. Nusenkis justified his claim by saying that he paid Vasyliev nearly $200 million in the late 1990s, with Papunidis saying that both sides had agreed to equal shares previously. Vasyliev said in 2013 that he had handed Nusenkis assets from the offshore company to manage after he decided to separate from Energo in 2005, but that in 2007 Nusenkis had re-registered the assets to himself. Regardless, in December 2012, Cyprus froze the assets of Energo over the dispute.
Donetskstal is part of the umbrella company of Energo, and primarily consists of the more industrial assets in Ukraine, although other sources describe Donetskstal as the remnants of Energo. It is also part of the offshore Cypriot Fintest Trading, which is part of Energo also. Nusenkis originally only acquired parts of the Donetsk Metallurgical Plant, but bought it out in 2000 after its debts exceeded $100 million under its previous Pakistani owner Mohammad Zahoor. The metallurgical plant then became part of the newly created Donetskstal as its central asset, while Makiivkoks, Pokrovske coal mine, Yasynuvata coke plant, and the Donetsk Electrotechnical Plant were also brought into Donetskstal's fold. In addition, although not in Ukraine, Nusenkis put the Yurginsky Machine-Building Plant in Russia and T Machineria "S" in the Czech Republic as part of Donetskstal in the 2000s. However, in 2008, Donetskstal's output fell during the 2008 financial crisis, especially at the coke plants and the Pokrovske mine, which led to pig iron production under Donetskstal being temporarily stopped. The downturn in production continued into 2009 when ArcelorMittal canceled its contracts for coke, which led to Donetskstal deciding to move into the foreign market and ship to India, Iran, and South Africa. The company won a tender in 2010 with the Esfahan Steel Company in Iran, which led to Donetskstal announcing plans for a trading company based in the Middle East. However, some of Donetskstal's assets were stopped in 2010, which was compounded a year later by the dispute with Vasyliev, which also affected Donetskstal, as Vasyliev also claimed 50% of Donetskstal. After production resumed, in 2012 Donetskstal took a $500 million loan together with Energo through multiple banks to pay its debts.
As most of Donetskstal's assets were based in the Donbas, the company was heavily affected by the start of the War in the Donbas. In 2015, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said it had seized one of Donetskstal's coke shipments and was opening a case due to the company "financing terrorism" because of its association with work in the pro-Russian, separatist Donetsk People's Republic. The SBU alleged that coke from both Makiivkoks and Yasnuvata was still being shipped from DPR-controlled territory and exported through a firm in Mariupol. It also said that 1 million hryvnias a quarter were deposited into a DPR-based banks and that Donetskstal's assets were among the first to re-register in the DPR and that the company was close to the Head of the DPR, Alexander Zakharchenko. Nusenkis did not comment on the allegations initially, although former President Viktor Yanukovych, who was said to be working with Donetskstal, denied the allegations. In February 2015, it was announced that Donetskstal would stop production completely for the month. The company also laid off many of its workers, although jobs were kept for people who had allegedly joined the "militia". In April 2015, an official from the DPR said that the restarting of Donetskstal was planned, although by March 2016 it was also alleged that equipment from Yasynuvata's plant was being dismantled and moved to Russia. Makiivkoks was eventually restarted, and it began supplying coke to Russia. A year later, in 2017, Pokrovske was moved out of Donetskstal and transferred to the Industrial Coal Holding (ICH), which in 2018 was sold to a consortium of Metinvest, BVI, and Cyprus-based companies. Cypriot Fintest Trading, was also sold off a few days later to Metinvest, Altana, Misandyco, and Treimur. Metinvest was also reported to have an option on the remaining stakes of Donetskstal after ICU bought up around $280 million of the debt Donetskstal owed to a number of banks.
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.
