The corporate rights of four companies related to ex-MP Viktor Medvedchuk and his entourage were immediately seized, and they were handed over to the Asset Management and Investigation Agency (ARMA).
This was reported to ARMA.
Land leased by these companies with an area of over 49 hectares was also seized and handed over to ARMA. These are the companies PE "Orest", LLC "Osokorky-7", LLC "Academ-club" and PE "Firm "Viktoria".
As Bihus.Info writes, earlier these assets were not arrested due to the fault of investigators and prosecutors. In July, Bihus.Info published an investigation that, despite the court order, companies associated with Medvedchuk, which use almost 50 hectares of land on the banks of the Dnipro in Kyiv, actually managed to avoid arrest.
The owners of the companies were constantly changing, and over Medvedchukʼs assets a grandiose legal dispute broke out between peopleʼs entourage of the MP Vadym Stolar, ex-MP developer Maksym Mykytas and deputy head of the Presidentʼs Office Oleh Tatarov, who claim the asset. As a result, a new residential complex was recently started to be built on one of the plots that should have been under arrest.
The story of Bihus.Info journalists was published on July 15, and the very next day, according to a court decision, the corporate rights of companies and land plots in the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office were recognized as physical evidence in the case of Medvedchuk, who is subject to sanctions. On July 19, the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv granted the prosecutorʼs request for the seizure and transfer of assets to the ARMA administration.
As noted, the history with these companies and the land stretches back to the summer of 2022. Then the Lychakiv court of Lviv decided that the shares in the companies should be seized, because the companies are connected to Medvedchuk and his entourage.
The investigators of the State Bureau of Investigation and the prosecutors who took care of this case, after the court decision, had to impose an actual arrest through the state registrar, so that no more changes could take place in the companies. However, this was never done.
Since the fall of 2022, the companies have regularly changed owners, among whom journalists found people from the entourage of the MP Vadym Stolar, former MP Maksym Mykytas and deputy head of the Presidentʼs Office Oleh Tatarov.
The owners changed until the beginning of 2023. In the fall of the same year, the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office together with the Ministry of Justice canceled all registration actions in three of the four aforementioned companies. However, the new owners proved through the Kyiv court that, despite the decision of the Lviv Lychakiv court, they had the legal right to re-register their shares in companies related to Medvedchuk.
- Even before the full-scale Russian invasion, Medvedchuk was informed of suspicion of treason and looting of national resources. In 2021, he was put under house arrest, but managed to escape. The former MP was detained on April 12, 2022, and already in September Medvedchuk was exchanged for Ukrainian prisoners of war. SBU explained that his exchange will not interfere with the consideration of cases in court and the imposition of punishment.
- On January 10, 2023, President Volodymyr Zelensky deprived Medvedchuk of his Ukrainian citizenship. Medvedchuk and his family now live in Russia and registered the non-governmental organization "Drugaya Ukraina" [“Another Ukraine”] there.