Afrasianet - Sayed Shibl - When nationalization serves the West it is presented as a global model, and when it serves another party it is portrayed as a "destructive socialism". This is not a traditional economic policy, but an imperial policy par excellence!
One of the strangest paradoxes of international politics today is that the United States, which does not stop pressuring third world countries to force them to privatize, reduce the role of the state, and open markets without restrictions to foreign companies, is now celebrating the experience of nationalizing an oil company in Ukraine and describes it as a "global model"!
This is neither a joke nor a political satire, but a reality confirmed by the reports of the American institutions themselves, European think tanks, and even the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
The story is not just technical or economic; it is a stark example of how U.S. policy controls the definition of "success" and "failure," and how nationalization becomes good and welcome when it redistributes gains in favor of the West, while "socialism," "corruption," and "threatens democracy" when it affects their interests or those of multinational corporations.
Ukranavata: The Oil Company That Blew Up the Contradiction
Ukranavata is the largest producer of oil and fuel in Ukraine, and its ownership since the 1990s has been distributed between:
- 56% for the government.
- Approximately 44% to Ukrainian-Israeli businessman Ihor Kolomoisky via Privat Group.
The company itself was founded in 1994 through the privatization of the state institution "Ukranfta Production Department", which had existed since 1945, when Ukraine was one of the 15 Soviet republics, meaning that the first credit for its creation goes to Joseph Stalin, who led the Soviet Union between 1922 and 1953.
Kolomoisky, who has controlled Ukraine since the mid-1990s, is one of the most famous oligarchs after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and one of the beneficiaries of the wave of predatory privatization that has caused the state's fortunes to drift into tight financial scarcity. He was ranked as the second richest man in Ukraine in 2010, but, as usual, the man was not just a billionaire, but an important political player, and his career over the last ten years can be summed up in the following six points:
1- Support for the 2014 color revolution against President Viktor Yanukovych and his pro-Russian party.
2- He has funded far-right militias such as the Azov Brigade to counter Ukrainian groups in the eastern regions, which support cooperation with Moscow.
3- He served as the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region from 2014 to 2016.
4- He repeatedly attacked Russian President Vladimir Putin and supported the alliance with Washington and Western European capitals.
5- He clashed with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in 2016 for control of the state-owned oil pipeline operator. As things escalated between the two men, Kolomoisky was removed from his post, and the bank, owned by his financial group, which is suffering from a lack of capital, was declared a threat to Ukraine's financial security, and thus its ownership was transferred to the state in 2016.
In 2019, Kolomoisky supported Volodymyr Zelensky to remove Poroshenko from the post of President of Ukraine, through television stations and newspapers owned by him, knowing that Zelensky had earlier starred in the comedy series "Servant of the People" which aired on one of Kolomoisky's television stations. Therefore, he was seen by opponents, especially Poroshenko, as Kolomoisky's candidate.
Until that moment, Kolomoisky was seen by the broader segments of the Ukrainian people as wealthy and ruled from behind the scenes, using weapons and gang language to intimidate his opponents, evading taxes, harnessing state resources to serve their personal interests, and laundering money from those actions abroad. In contrast, the United States did not see Kolomoisky as "corrupt" or a "danger to democracy." On the contrary, there was complete silence, but everything changed by the end of 2019.
Suddenly, Kolomoisky began to move away from the American tone, and showed a more positive attitude towards Russia, driven by his disappointment with the West, especially the United States, proposing to benefit from Russian funding instead of relying on Western loans, and considered the conflict in the Donbas region to be an "internal civil conflict, not an external Russian aggression." In April 2022, he did not issue a clear position condemning Russia's invasion
Here, the whole narrative changed, as the United States and the Ukrainian authorities turned into open hostility toward the man. Overnight, all the files incriminating Kolomoisky were opened, which are in fact an extension of the accusations leveled against him by the Ukrainian authorities before 2014.
In light of these events, and coinciding with the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, Ukranvata was nationalized in 2022, or more precisely, the government took control of the Privat Group's share, and the state became 100% owned by the company, and Zelensky's supporters promoted the move as necessary with the aim of "protecting national resources", "fighting corruption" and "fortifying national security".
These slogans, raised in Kiev, with American support, are, according to traditional American discourse, "socialist myths" or "old Cold War rhetoric," but in Ukraine, they are suddenly accepted, praised, and supported by the United States.
The reason is that Washington no longer trusts the owner of the company, and because controlling Ukraine's energy sector is part of a strategy to reshape Ukraine's economy according to a model that does not allow for the existence of centers of power competing with American influence.
Irony: The West celebrates nationalization. Because he serves his interests
The difference is that when developing countries – from Egypt to Argentina to Pakistan – talk about nationalizing strategic sectors, they are accused of being anti-market, intimidating investors, crushing the private sector, and working against development. In Ukraine, it has become a global model!
Three years after the company's nationalization, Western think tanks such as CEPA are reporting that nationalization is a "success story," talking about the company's success in paying $375 million in taxes in one year — more than it paid in 10 years, and about plant sales up 20% in the first quarter of 2025 despite the market decline, with 5% growth in oil production and 1.7% growth in gas production.
Even the European Bank (EBRD) began to inject millions of dollars in loans to expand production, which was impossible under the Kolomoisky administration, because it would have been considered financing for the oligarchy, but when the company became "under state control" — especially under the control of a state operating according to Western standards — funding became available.
On the other hand, when an Arab or African country talks about protecting a strategic sector through its state-run management, it becomes "bad policy" or "anti-investment," but when Ukraine — Washington's political, military, and ideological partner — nationalizes one of the world's largest energy assets, this nationalization becomes a "lesson for the world," and everyone's attention is drawn to the study of the Ukrainian economy, which is being completely reshaped according to Western interests, and what happened with Ukranfta is part of a broader process that includes:
a. Restructuring the military sector so that it becomes dependent on American technology.
b. Linking the energy sector with American and European companies.
c) Turning Ukraine into an open market for Western companies after the war.
D. Exclude the traditional oligarchy, because it may rebuild relations with Russia in the future, as it acts according to its own interests.
e. Transforming the Ukrainian state into an economic model based on "Western governance" — that is, according to the visions of American and European institutions.
Not ideology, but interests
The U.S. and the IMF require poor countries to sell their assets, reduce the role of the state, lift subsidies, and make room for foreign investment, but the U.S. government itself intervenes to manage and direct the economy when necessary.
During World War II, the U.S. government effectively controlled the economy, using the directive method to ensure that resources were mobilized for the war, giving direct orders to factories to produce weapons, planes, tanks, and ammunition, and forcing large corporations such as Ford and General Motors entirely into military production.
The government also took over the allocation of basic raw materials such as steel, oil, and timber according to military priorities, and established a price and wage control council to prevent inflation.
In the 2008 crisis, the state temporarily nationalized banks and car companies to prevent them from collapsing, and to protect the economic process. In 2020, during his first term, Donald Trump used the U.S. Defense Production Act (DPA), which dates back to 1950 during the Korean War, with the original goal of enabling the U.S. government to "force private companies to produce goods necessary for national security or to meet emergency needs." This happened during the COVID-19 pandemic, when automakers General Motors was forced to manufacture ventilators, and later, under Joe Biden, it was used to guide the Merck-Johnson & Johnson partnership to fund Merck's factories were set up in March 2021 to produce the J&J vaccine.
There are other examples of the US state's intervention in the economy without paying any attention to the slogans "Let it work, let it pass", such as Trump's insistence on imposing very high tariffs on Chinese products to protect American manufacturers, and targeting specific technology companies such as Huawei, under the pretext of national security, and there is also Joe Biden's refusal to sell US Steel to Japan's Nippon, stressing that "the steel industry owned and operated by Americans is a key priority for national security", and this was before his departure A few weeks out of office.
Imperial Politics: Economic Intervention in the Name of Interests
Some countries are critical when they interfere in their economies, while others are encouraged to intervene, and this shows the essence of the American contradiction in economic policies.
The United States is not opposed to nationalization or privatization in principle, but evaluates each case according to who will benefit and who will be harmed: if nationalization strengthens the state at the expense of Western companies, it is seen negatively, and if it weakens an unloyal billionaire and enhances the capacity of Western companies, it is considered positive.
The story of the nationalization of Ukranafta, and many other examples, makes this clear: it is not a question of corruption or improvement of management mechanisms, but of a redistribution of economic influence in Washington's interests.
When nationalization serves the West, it is presented as a global model, and when it serves another it is portrayed as "destructive socialism." This is not a traditional economic policy, but an imperial policy par excellence that controls how a country's economy is run according to the priorities of global power.