On September 1, 2022, the Higher Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine issued its first decision on the confiscation of property owned by a sanctioned Russian citizen in Ukraine. The assets of oligarch Yevtushenkov, who has been subjected to sanctions by the President of Ukraine, were seized, and the proceeds were collected for the state.
Iryna Mudra, Deputy Minister of Justice of Ukraine, emphasizes that before this decision, the Higher Anti-Corruption Court and then the Ministry of Justice, along with the team of the Sanctions Policy Department, carried out monumental work, and they have something to report. According to her information, the results of their work during this period include:
- Filing 29 lawsuits with the Higher Anti-Corruption Court for the recovery of assets for the state.
- Receiving favorable decisions in 28 cases in the first instance.
- 25 decisions have become legally binding, while the rest are in the Appeals stage or awaiting legal force.
- One lawsuit is currently under consideration by the Higher Anti-Corruption Court, involving sanctioned individuals Babakov, Giner, and Voivodin in the energy, industrial, and hotel sectors.
- There are 41 sanctioned individuals to whom sanctions have been applied.
This includes dozens of companies, some of which are of strategic importance to the country's economy, hundreds of real estate properties, thousands of movable assets worth billions of hryvnias, and a sum of 130 million hryvnias in cash.
"It is very important for us to transmit these decisions to international partners (through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Office of the Prosecutor General) and ask them to block the assets of sanctioned individuals in their jurisdictions for whom there are decisions of the Higher Anti-Corruption Court. Such assets should be used for compensating the victims," emphasizes Iryna Mudra.
She also added that the United States is preparing to transfer $5.4 million USD to Ukraine, confiscated from Russian oligarch Malofeyev due to sanctions evasion. U.S. Secretary of State Blinken announced this during his visit to Kyiv.
Ukraine is operating within a legal framework, but to prove ownership of assets by sanctioned individuals (who have done everything to remain hidden), it takes a considerable amount of time: finding relevant documents, proving legitimacy in courts, and obtaining a final decision. The Ministry of Justice is working on this complex task in collaboration with the Office of the Prosecutor General, the Security Service of Ukraine, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, the State Bureau of Investigations, the National Police of Ukraine, the Main Directorate of Military Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, the Bureau of Economic Security, the Asset Recovery and Management Agency, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, the State Financial Monitoring Service of Ukraine, the National Bank of Ukraine, the State Tax Service of Ukraine, and the State Customs Service of Ukraine. Additionally, several civic organizations, including the Anti-Corruption Action Center, StateWatch, Automaidan, NADRA.info, are assisting in this effort.
"Our common goal is to find, prove, obtain decisions from Higher Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine, and recover the largest amount of assets in favor of the state from those who support Putin's regime, so we don't stop and work 24/7. By the end of this month, there will be new lawsuits filed with Higher Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine! Next, we will hand over the relay to the State Property Fund of Ukraine," announced Iryna Mudra, Deputy Minister of Justice of Ukraine, regarding the recovery of Russian assets in Ukraine.
