Rinat Akhmetov said that allegations of contacts with Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian-intelligence-linked associate of Manafort, were "false" and that Manafort's work for Akhmetov's System Capital Management (SCM) ended over a decade ago.
Yes, this is in all probability correct. Manafort worked with Dmytro Firtash, Akhmetov's competitor in the Yanukovych circle. In the first half of 2005, Akhmetov hired Manafort to find him a better politician than Yanukovych. Manafort concluded that Yanukovych was the best.
Akhmetov din't like the answer, so Manafort went to work directly for Yanukovych. Akhmetov didn't like it a bit, but Yanukovych was still his favorite politician, so he swallowed the insult but was demoted by Manafort & Firtash.
I was there.
