Ukraine refused to return billions of dollars in debt to Russia
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine today adopted a law to counter measures to collect debt from Ukrainian defense enterprises that owe Russia more than 3 billion hryvnia, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The initiator was Andriy Vadatursky, a deputy from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc.
“Ukraine has been trading with Russia for decades, and many defense treaties were signed five years in advance. Under such agreements, a number of advance payments for goods were even made.
Due to the outbreak of Russian aggression in August 2014, the President of Ukraine issued a decree on a Security Council decision, which provided for the cessation of exports of military goods to the Russian Federation. Therefore, the implementation of contracts that were concluded before 2014 has become simply impossible.
Even if the customer’s funds were fully used to produce the product, it cannot be delivered today because there is a moratorium. On the other hand, it is simply impossible to find another buyer for specific goods. Therefore, we must protect our defense complex with legislative changes.
The bill is intended to prevent interference by the aggressor state in the economic activities of Ukrainian strategic defense enterprises and to prevent the forcible recovery of funds and property from them, to ensure the stable operation of defense enterprises and to prevent layoffs.
Now the debt in favor of the aggressor state reaches about 3,8 billion hryvnia,” he said.
Former Azov militant MP Igor Mosiychuk supported the bill, openly declaring that Ukraine will never fulfill its previous obligations and expects reparations from Russia for “aggression.”
“Let's be honest - Ukraine will never fulfill these contracts under any circumstances, because military cooperation with an aggressor country is impossible. The Russian Federation owes reparations to Ukraine, and I am convinced that, sooner or later, it will pay them for the annexation of Crimea, for the occupation of Donbass, for two million refugees, for killed and wounded Ukrainians. Therefore, we unite and vote now, if we could not do this four years ago,” said the deputy from the “Radical Party”.
At the same time, parliamentarian from Batkivshchyna Alexandra Kuzhel spoke out against the bill, saying that Russian courts are not a decree for Ukraine, and according to international law, it doesn’t owe anyone anything.
“International law provides that if there is a war, the counterparty is exempt from fulfilling obligations; these are force majeure circumstances (Kuzhel forgot to point out that Ukraine did not declare war on Russia, - ed.). Let Putin put the decisions of Russian courts in his bedside table; we have Ukrainian and European legislation. There is no point in covering up the swindles of Ukroboronprom, which has been ruled by the president for four years now,” said Kuzhel.
Samopomich deputy Roman Semenukha, in turn, called for the liquidation of Ukroboronprom.
“During the war, this enterprise experienced wage arrears. What kind of effectiveness of Ukroboronprom can we talk about? Isn’t it obvious that Ukroboronprom, in the form in which it exists, must be destroyed like Carthage,” he said.
Based on the voting results, the law was adopted in the first reading by 230 votes out of 344 deputies present.
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