3 billion of Ukraine’s non-existent debt to Russian Defense Ministry: Kyiv Commercial Court Judge is served with notice of suspicion of treason. PHOTO
Employees of the State Bureau of Investigation under the procedural supervision of the Prosecutor General's Office served a notice of suspicion to a judge of the Kyiv Commercial Court and former senior officials.
This was reported by Censor.NET with reference to the SBI press centre.
It was established that in 2011, the aggressor country involved the then President, Prime Minister of Ukraine and a judge of the Kyiv Economic Court, as well as heads of various parts of the judicial system in subversive activities against Ukraine.
"The Russian leadership has developed a plan according to which the defence capability and armed forces of the aggressor will be financed at the expense of the State Budget of Ukraine under the pretext of executing the decision of the Kyiv Economic Court to repay a non-existent debt," the statement said.
Ukraine's non-existent debt to Russia
To this end, in 2011, the Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation addressed the Ukrainian leadership with a letter asking for assistance in repaying the debt of one of the business entities in the amount of USD 405.5 million for natural gas supplied in 1996-1997.
"Our state had nothing to do with the debt of the commercial enterprise and could not be held responsible for it. However, in 2011, the former leadership of the country began to emphasise in the media that Ukraine had to repay the amount to the Russian Ministry of Defence. In addition, a letter was prepared to the SSU with a request to prosecute the head of the business entity for allegedly shifting this debt to the state," the SBI said.
In an attempt to artificially create grounds for direct funding of the Russian Ministry of Defence from the Ukrainian state budget, high-ranking officials involved the judiciary and a judge of the Kyiv Commercial Court to recover USD 405.5 million in favour of Russia under an unlawful court decision.
Following the scheme developed by the defendants, in August 2012, the Russian Ministry of Defence filed a lawsuit against the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine in the Kyiv Commercial Court to recover more than UAH 3 billion from the state budget.
The Russians were counting on the fact that back in 2004, the then Prime Minister, and later the President of Ukraine, had promised to assist them in enforcing these court decisions. However, due to the absence of contractual relations between the plaintiff and the defendant, the judge had to refuse to open proceedings.
Moreover, the Russian Ministry of Defence did not attach any evidence to the claim to prove why Ukraine should pay this debt. However, the commercial court judge issued an unlawful ruling and shifted the burden of collecting and presenting evidence in the case to the defendant.
Following this ruling, the Cabinet of Ministers provided copies of correspondence between the heads of the governments of Ukraine and the Russian Federation dated 1996. They were dated before the business entity entered into the agreement under which the debt arose, so these letters could not be evidence of either the existence of the debt or its transfer to Ukraine. In addition, the originals of these letters never existed, but the court ignored this fact.
Despite the expiry of the limitation period and the absence of state guarantees for the company's debts, as well as the absence of evidence of the existence of the company's debt under the 1996-1997 contracts in 2012, the judge granted the claim of the Russian Ministry of Defence and ordered to recover more than UAH 3.1 billion from any account of the State Budget of Ukraine in favour of the Russian Federation.
"A part of the money was recovered from Ukraine to enforce the said illegal court decision in favour of the Russian Federation. After the beginning of the Russian aggression against our country and the change of the state leadership, another judge of the Economic Court cancelled this illegal decision in 2014, but the money unreasonably collected in the interests of Russia was not returned. According to the investigation, these funds were used to finance the so-called "SMO", the SBI added.
The actions of the suspects are classified under Part 2 of Article 28, Part 1 of Article 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine as high treason committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy.
The maximum penalty is 15 years' imprisonment.