VimpelCom Still Searching For Ukrainian Partner

After walking away from proposals to acquire Ukraine's leading mobile operator Kyivstar in June 2006, Russian's VimpelCom has now set its sights on a possible merger with Astelit. VimpelCom first entered the Ukrainian market in 2005, when it acquired Ukrainian Radio Systems (URS), the newest and smallest of Ukraine's four mobile companies. The Russian operator then entered into negotiations to acquire Kyivstar, a move that was intended to placate Norwegian telecoms company Telenor, which is a major shareholder in both VimpelCom and Kyivstar and had been opposed to the acquisition of URS. However, VimpelCom later turned its back on the

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