Dozens of porcelain chickens and roosters decorate Yuriy Kosiuk’s office in kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. Nicknamed “ THE king of chicken”, the 55-year-old oligarch has risen to the top ten richest in the country thanks to his company, Myronivsky Hliboprodukt (MHP), which manages 60% of the country’s poultry production, or around three hundred million chickens per year . MHP farms cover no less than 300,000 hectares of land in the country.
But Yuriy Kosiuk cultivates discretion. He organized several business meetings in Paris in mid-February, and each time he preferred to send John Rich, his Australian right-hand man, president and number two of the group. According to Dmytro (first name changed at his request), one of his former advisors, the billionaire refuses to become a public figure. However, for several months, his name has been on everyone’s lips. Across Europe, farmers, who demonstrated to improve their living conditions, denounce, among other things, unfair competition from Ukrainian poultry, sold at low prices.
In April 2022, in response to the Russian invasion, the European Union removed customs duties on all Ukrainian agricultural products, which allowed imports of certain foods, including chicken, to double in a few months. During a European summit in Brussels, on 1er February, President Emmanuel Macron criticized this increase, referring to the big Ukrainian boss (who did not wish to respond to our requests): “Who benefits from this, three-quarters? To a group, owned by a billionaire. Objectively, we don’t want to enrich this gentleman. »
Support for war efforts
While traveling in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, John Rich said to himself “shocked » by the accusation of the French president. “How can we blame Ukraine for the precariousness of farmers in France? “, asks this former consultant for the World Bank. Without denying that the Ukrainian agri-food group has largely benefited from economic measures in favor of kyiv, the Australian executive insists on the drop in the valuation of the company (listed on the London Stock Exchange) due to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, in February 2022.
According to figures from the group, which employs thirty thousand employees, MHP also spent the equivalent of 20 million euros in two years of war to support the families of its thousands of employees engaged on the front. If an employee dies in combat, the employer is committed to paying his family his salary “ for ten years », explains John Rich. He also details the donations of chickens made to the army and likes to tell how Yuriy Kosiuk, his ” close friend “piloted a solidarity kitchen along the front line in February 2022.
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