The senior official confirmed to Ukraine’s website Economic Pravda that the decision to seize this money had already been taken at the government level and the “next steps are the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine and the presidential decree to implement it.”

This will lead Kiev to expropriate the assets of the International Reserve Bank, a subsidiary of Russia’s Sberbank, and the Prominvestbank, with a participation of more than 97 percent in VEB, also from Russia.

She said that the funds held in savings accounts at the National Bank of Ukraine, in various correspondent accounts, as well as loans granted to public companies will be seized.

Rekrut stressed that public bonds will also be confiscated, meaning that the Ukrainian State will no longer owe anything to Russian banks. She said that they also expect that the certificates of deposit and the corporate rights of those banks will be expropriated.

The confiscations also include Russian loans granted to four Ukrainian state-owned companies of strategic importance, whose debt amounts, not counting interests, to about 337 million dollars.

Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council imposed sanctions on the International Reserve Bank and the Prominvestbank in 2017, prohibiting them from withdrawing their capital from the country.

One day after the beginning of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, the National Bank of Ukraine revoked the licenses granted to both Russian financial institutions.

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