Ukraine arrested UAH 12.4 billion worth of assets belonging to Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman

Ukrainian court arrested UAH 12.4 billion worth of assets belonging to Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman at Alfa-Bank. These are securities of Cyprus companies related to the businessman, report Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova and the Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine.

Before the start and during the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the oligarch and his partners legalized assets of UAH 1.1 billion through offshore and Alfa-Bank.

Investigation says that through a scheme with fictitious transactions, Fridman and his business partners tried to avoid possible negative consequences like sanctions and the nationalization of assets. Earlier, the court seized almost half a billion hryvnias in assets of offshore companies.

Detectives of the Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine found that an offshore company uses a securities account acquired through fictitious transactions, respectively, they are material evidence. Therefore, the court decided to arrest the assets of Cyprus companies totaling more than UAH 12.4 billion.

In the early days of the war, Financial Times reported that Fridman allegedly spoke out against the war in Ukraine amid preparations of international sanctions against Russian oligarchs. Fridman and his partners own Russia's largest private bank, Alfa-Bank, the X5 supermarket chain, and mobile operator Veon.

The oligarch spends most of his time in Moscow and London. The British newspaper The Sunday Times even rated him as the 11th richest man in the UK last year.