For 10 years now many of the world’s biggest fish have gathered on the shores of the comparatively small pond that is the Black Sea to shoot the geopolitical breeze, at the financial behest of a Ukrainian billionaire-cum-politician-cum-philanthropist.
“I do this to bring the world’s biggest visionaries to Ukraine,” says Victor Pinchuk, the 53-year-old Ukrainian commodities billionaire who is now doing big things with his country’s serious HIV/Aids problem. “It makes Ukraine think globally .... We are thinking climate change, over-population, not just Ukrainian problems.”
That may be true, but the boost to his personal profile is certainly not lost on him. The conference press officers speak more in terms of the big names they’ve pulled in over the years, rather than its transformative impact on Ukrainian politics, which don’t appear to be all that transformed.
