By happy coincidence, Mr Tihipko comes from Dnipropetrivsk, as do Mr Kuchma and his billionaire son-in-law Viktor Pinchuk.

BBC: NEWS | Europe | Kuchma scrambles to secure future

Viktor Pinchuk invoked the name of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in his struggle with the new government of Ukraine.

FORBES

The auction seems designed to favour a consortium formed by two Ukrainian oligarchs, Rinat Akhmetov and Viktor Pinchuk.

ECONOMIST: Ukraine gives foreigners the finger

There's plenty stirring in Eastern Europe's steel markets: Yesterday a Ukrainian court seized control of billionaire Viktor Pinchuk's Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant and froze any shareholder activity, at the behest of that country's president, Viktor Yushchenko, (see "Ukrainian Billionaire Stripped Of Another Asset").

FORBES

According to the Associated Press, just last month Ukraine's Premier, Yulia Tymoshenko, counseled Russian metals and oil billionaire Viktor Vekselberg not to buy Pinchuk's shares in the Nikopol factory--which now sounds like a canny tip-off.

FORBES: Ukrainian Billionaire Stripped Of Another Asset