The fire that broke out last week at the metallurgical plant of the Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky in Ohio (the United States), as investigators suspect, could be the result of arson, according to U.S. journalist Michael Salla, editor of the investigative journalism department of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, on referred to by Radio Liberty.

"We really think it was deliberate arson," he said, citing fire investigation spokesperson Brian Bonert.

According to the journalist, a source familiar with the investigation said that at the time of the start of the fire in the factory building, the electricity was cut off, the fire hydrants were turned off, there was no lighting, so imagine what happened there.

According to Salla, the fire broke out only two days after the Ohio prosecutor general's office filed a large case against the plant for gross violations of environmental requirements after revealing mountains of toxic waste on its territory that ended up in a nearby river.

The journalist said that in the United States, Kolomoisky is under investigation for money laundering, namely the theft of millions of dollars from a Ukrainian bank and secretly investing them in metallurgical plants throughout the United States. He was left with empty, destroyed buildings, hazardous industrial conditions and unemployed workers, writes Salla, the author of an investigation into Kolomoisky's methods of activity in the United States, published in April.

In March, the United States added Kolomoisky to its sanctions list, accusing him of involvement in acts of corruption. These sanctions so far only provide for a ban on the entry of the oligarch himself and his family members into the United States.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is also investigating the Ukrainian oligarch in connection with the withdrawal of funds from PrivatBank (Kyiv), once the largest creditor in Ukraine, in the amount of $5.5 billion. Kolomoisky and his partner Hennadiy Boholiubov are accused of embezzling billions of dollars from the bank, which they then owned, through fraudulent loans, and used some of the proceeds to buy assets in the United States, including real estate and steel mills.