Ukraine's parliament endorses forcible seizure of assets of two Russian banks in Ukraine

The Verkhovna Rada has adopted the presidential decree on the forced confiscation of assets of Russia and its residents in Ukraine, including two banks at today's sitting, MPs Oleksiy Honcharenko and Yaroslav Zheleznyak reported.

The draft law №7371 was submitted to the parliament by President Volodymyr Zelensky, who implemented the decision of the National Security and Defense Council in his decree №326.

The law concerns 99.7% of shares of Prominvestbank (PIB) owned by the state development corporation VEB.RF, and all shares of the International Reserve Bank (MR Bank, formerly Sberbank, Kyiv) owned by Sberbank.

The NSDC wants to seize financial assets in the form of rights to claim the debt of VEB.RF to PIB for 0.93 billion hryvnias ($31.5 million) and Sberbank's to MR Bank for 14.9 billion hryvnias ($504 million). The Ukrainian authorities also want to confiscate other financial assets of the subsidiaries of Russian banks. The exception is 3 billion hryvnias ($101.6 million) of MR Bank, which is used to satisfy the claims of its creditors.

After studying the document, the members of the relevant parliamentary committee recommended that the parliament adopt it as a basis and as a whole. If the bill is passed, the government, the Deposit Guarantee Fund and the National Bank must forcibly seize the said property rights of Russia and its residents within 10 days from the date of publication of the presidential decree on the implementation of this decision.