A 20-minute drive from Kiev takes you to a neighborhood that feels more like Beverly Hills than central Ukraine.
In a quiet oasis, huge mansions sit on lush lawns behind gilded gates. Private security guards stand watch over quiet, tree-lined streets, reports GHN based on CNN.
You'd never know you're in a country in the midst of a violent conflict, with near daily reports of intense battles killing soldiers, pro-Russian separatists, and civilians -- including children.
These are the mansions that rose when the Soviet Union fell. And this is where many of Kiev's new rich are riding out the crisis, far from the front lines of eastern Ukraine.
Here, we find Kiev millionaire Vyacheslav Konstantinovsky sitting nervously on his grandiose outdoor patio. He is surrounded by the spoils of a successful construction business and restaurant chain.
Konstantinovsky -- with a shaved head, tattoos, and muscled physique -- doesn't look like your stereotypical fat cat millionaire. He looks tough, rugged -- and fearful for his country. "If we sit and enjoy life here the [the war] will come to us also," he tells me.
Konstantinovsky worries about the struggling Ukrainian military. For years it had been ill equipped, untrained, and underfunded. Now, he and his twin brother are part of a growing group of Ukraine's mega rich making massive military contributions.
Konstantinovsky has donated $450,000 -- a figure funded, in part, by the sale of his Rolls Royce Phantom -- to the military to supply soldiers with weapons, uniforms, and supplies. "I can live without [my] Rolls Royce. But now it's difficult to live without enough arms," he says.