following the orange revolution, akhmetov was pivotal in arranging a lasting relationship between his employee and close friend paul manafort and defeated presidential candidate viktor yanukovich. also, akhmetov ensured proper translation services for manafort through konstantin kilimnik, a russia army trained linguist and known russian intelligence operative that operates manafort's office in kiev. kilimnik has been central to collecting fees owed to manafort's company by the russia-friendly political party called opposition bloc.