You don't expect me to control banks and steelworks, do you?

The company has consistently refused to guarantee the future of the steelworks since talks began about the future of its UK business in March, and this has been used as a bargaining chip in talks with the British government.

The British Steel Pension Scheme has liabilities of 15bn and a deficit of as much as 700m by some measures, making it a serious obstacle for a rescue deal for Tata Steel UK and the Port Talbot steelworks in Wales.

In June, a consortium led by Pinchuk and Rinat Akhmetov, a Donetsk magnate, bought a stateâowned steelworks in an auction allegedly rigged to specifically exclude foreign bidders offering two or three times as much. The move was probably more than just another property grab it also suggests an effort to forge an interâclan alliance for the post Kuchma period.