Kyiv: Ukraine is seeking to take possession of sanctioned Russian oligarchs assets
The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office and the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) are looking abroad for the assets of Russian citizens close to the Kremlin in order to confiscate their property in favor of Ukraine, said head of the NAPC Alexander Novikov in an interview with Radio Liberty.
According to him, there are certain international mechanisms for this such as appealing to the International Criminal Court and the European Court of Human Rights, as well as to the national courts of countries that have launched an investigation into war crimes committed by Russia.
"To date, EU countries have imposed sanctions on the property of 619 Russian persons, which means these assets will be frozen. Ukraine is working on taking possession of such assets," Novikov said.
The head of the NACP said that. for this purpose, by an order of Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova, a coordination group was created, which is headed by a representative of the NACP.
"We work together with investigative journalists from different countries, with the Russian opposition, with international law firms, law enforcement agencies of the European Union and the United States. This whole process is headed by the Office of the Prosecutor General," explained Alexander Novikov.
In addition, the head of the NACP said that the list of sanctioned Russian citizens and companies should be expanded to at least 6,000.
In his opinion, now "it is not the search for assets that is critical, but an increase of at least 10 times in the number of individuals and legal entities of the Russian Federation on which sanctions are imposed."
"Not all the oligarchs close to Putin, who actually finance the war against Ukraine, have been sanctioned. In particular, sanctions have not been imposed on all members of the Russian government. Sanctions have been imposed only on every third enterprise of Russia’s military-industrial sector. Therefore, today it is extremely necessary to increase the number of sanctioned Russians from six hundred to six thousand people. I am sure that the all their assets will be found, frozen and expropriated in favor of Ukraine," Novikov said.