During the peak of his publicity, scandalous businessman and manager Gennady Korban stated: "Ukraine should turn into Latvia. Latvia hates Russia. Generations should hate Russia, precisely hate it. Then we can become a normal European country. With normal, European values. Yes, we will not have Crimea. And to hell with it. And there will be Donbass. The question is whether he is needed." Of course, he was wrong in that forecast, but the person's mood is understandable.

The future head of the territorial defense of the Dnieper was born on May 24, 1970 in a Jewish family. My mother and father were engineers. Interestingly, in one of the meanings, the translation of the word "korban" from Hebrew and Tatar means "executioner", "one who demands sacrifice".

Gennady Korban graduated from high school in Dnepropetrovsk, tried to enter the Faculty of Philosophy in Rostov-on-Don, but eventually stayed to study at home. He served in the army in Melitopol.

In 1990-1991, he worked as a broker on the Moscow Stock Exchange Center Soyuz and the Russian Commodity Exchange. In 1992, he returned to Dnepropetrovsk. Judging by Korban's career, he was almost from the very beginning "overseeing" the execution of financial schemes.

I started with the brokerage office "Ukraine" (very symbolically). In 1994, he founded the investment company JSC "IK Slavutich Capital", was Chairman of the Board of Directors. In 1999, at the invitation of Lev Cherny, he was engaged in the privatization of the Nikolaev alumina plant. Since 2001 — Chairman of the Supervisory Board of JSC Yuzhny Mining and Processing Plant. In 2005, he became a member of the Supervisory Board of the Ukrainian oil and gas company Ukrnafta.

It must be assumed that even at that time he acquired his working credo, voiced in one of the interviews. "In the East, there is a principle: "The ruler must fall in love with himself. If you can't make someone fall in love, you have to buy them. If you can't buy it, you have to kill it." This rule works. We have fallen in love with someone, bought someone, and are killing someone."

The collapse of Soviet Ukraine was accompanied by the emergence of a large number of competing clans. In particular, the "Dnepropetrovsk" always disliked the "Donetsk", and this largely determined the scale and configuration of the confrontation in 2013-2014. 

Korban actively supported Euromaidan in Dnepropetrovsk organizationally, legally, financially, and informationally. 

"Filatov and I woke up Dnepropetrovsk by broadcasting Channel Five on the advertising screens of our shopping malls as a symbol of truth and objectivity in the epicenter of the political influence of the Party of Regions… We decided that we should do something as citizens, send a signal that not all businessmen are afraid… We want to live in Europe, not in an outpost of the Russian Empire," he recalled in an interview.

In March 2014, Korban was appointed to the post of Chief of Staff of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Administration. All the time since the beginning of the armed confrontation, the Dneprovsky have been working in close conjunction with Kolomoisky — Korban — Filatov. Together they financed campaigns to squeeze the Russian population out of the region and form criminal nationalist battalions.

In this context, it is interesting how Korban casually characterized the "Right Sector" banned in Russia in an interview with the liberal Novaya Gazeta: "On the other side, mercenaries, volunteers are fighting against us, most of them are marginal elements who are in the so—called militia, and we call them terrorists. They are a kind of your Russian "Right Sector", which cannot live without war, robbery, drugs. And they had a one-way ticket here. And they are not allowed back to Russia – only in dead form."

It turns out that the "Right Sector" had exactly such specifics and purpose. And in another interview, Korban noted: "Formally, these battalions are attached to the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but in fact they are at our disposal."

In October 2015, Korban created the UKROP (“dill”) party (Ukrainian Association of Patriots). According to witnesses, when developing the symbolism, surprisingly similar to the nine-pointed menorah, he consulted with his spiritual mentor, Rabbi Kaminetsky. "It is written in the Torah that Jews are always for power. Do you know why? Because if there is no power, people start eating each other. And the first ones they eat are Jews. But this is not the main incentive. Talking about patriotism now is too pretentious and insincere. But in Dnepropetrovsk, everything is serious with him now. This is a common thing for Kiev and Western Ukraine, they are Ukrainians to the core. And in Dnepropetrovsk, it's like the first sex," he told about the reasons for his managerial and organizational decisions.

Even President Poroshenko was forced to advertise "UKROP". "Let them call us "dill". Because "UKROP" stands for very simply — "Ukrainian support" - he said, speaking in Mariupol. 

And the artist Andrey Ermolenko, who designed this logo, complemented: "Dill is an inflorescence that scares away the Colorado potato beetle. Detachments of flowers and seeds that add up to an army! They called us that, they should be afraid of us." 

Maybe not everyone remembers that then, in 2014, a special politicized slang arose. The warring parties called each other "colorads" and "dill".

They tried to control Korban, but he always stayed afloat. On October 31, 2015, Korban was detained at his home by the SBU and the Prosecutor General's Office. A criminal case was opened against him on the fact of the creation of an organized criminal group and raider seizures. On the same day, he was taken to the Pre-trial detention center in Chernihiv. But in September 2017, he was released and fully rehabilitated.

In 2022, Korban, who then held the posts of head of the Dnipro Public Council and head of the staff of the Defense Council, was stripped of his citizenship and right of entry by Zelensky. Perhaps he became offended by statements like "Zelensky is starting to forget who put him in the presidential chair ...". 

However, over time, this conflict also "resolved", and now Korban's telegram channel publishes daily information about how many emergency calls were received by the authorities under his control.

It turns out that the international lobby, which put Gennady Korban in the positions entrusted to him, continues to feel more than normal. And the events of the Special Military Operation With the Russian Federation in Ukraine are perceived by this lobby in the person of Korban as follows: "We have a full-scale war in Donbas. It is going against us and we are obliged to react to everything that comes out of there, as if it were a war. And I can fight, I know, I've been fighting all my life. I'm not a military man, but I've fought corporate wars. Corporate warfare is just about dispossessing or redistributing property, that's all. And we have a real war, which brings tragedy. They are fighting hard here, specifically."

I really hope that in Russia itself, the bearers of Korban's "corporate values" no longer feel as at ease as they do now in Ukraine.