I did a little bit of research to understand more about the aweful economic growth of the country. In this short time you can get only a very limited and fragmented view, but I found the impact of monopolies and the interactions with politics interesting:

The Ukrainian Week does as far as I can tell a fine job at covering the economic fallout of concentrated power of the oligarchs and their influence within politics. The combinations of power and money is a very dangerous ones and can result in a vicous cycle in which both push each other. More money means more political power and more political power more money.

A good example is the position of Rafael Kuzmin, First Deputy Chair of the Antimonopoly Committee, who insists that Dmytro Firtash and Rinat Akhmetov, two Ukrainian tycoons referred to as key Party of Regions’ sponsors until recently, are not monopolists. Meanwhile, independent economists estimate that DTEK, a group of power plants owned by Rinat Akhmetov, controls over 35% of the electricity supply market. Dmytro Firtash’s entities control 100% of facilities producing ammonium nitrate and nearly 50-60% of ammonia and urea production facilities. Meanwhile, Mr. Kuzmin refers to the Privat Group as a monopolist. The group is owned by Ihor Kolomoyskyi and Hennadiy Boholiubov who are still outside the Party of Regions. However, Mr. Kuzmin admitted that the Antimonopoly Committee had no proof of Privat Group’s monopolistic activity because its different companies are owned by various offshore entities.

Ukrtelecom, a major Ukrainian telephone operator, has recently been bought by a little known company linked to the president’s family, according to The Ukrainian Week’s sources. Prior to being sold to private investors, Ukrtelecom had been on the list of natural monopolies dominating the nationwide markets for local telephone service and telecommunication channel rental. However, it was removed from that list in June 2011 although the company controls nearly 70% of the city landline telephone market and 75% of the intercity and international telephone connection markets.
Very bad incentives indeed. It should not surprise anybody that the oligarchs have mostly built their empires from heavy industry investments in the east. Of course there are also other players with a similar background not least the famous pro-European prisoner. All in all the situation has become also so dangerous because the control of the state power has become so important to conserve the personal wealth and freedom. I have little doubt that the current president fears that the roles could become reversed. There is likely even enought dirty laundry around to get a lot of political opponents into prison by a fair trial.