Ukraine closes its register of sponsors of war

After appeals from partners, the website of Ukraine's National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), featuring a list of sponsors of the war, will cease to exist. 

This decision was made at an expanded government meeting attended by ambassadors of partner countries, Rubryka reports, citing the Ukrainian Government Portal.

The meeting was attended by Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksii Danilov, Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Maliuk, Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin, and Head of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention Viktor Pavlushchik.

Ambassadors of Italy, Japan, Austria, France, Hungary, Turkey, and charge d'affaires of the US, Belgium, Finland, Greece, and the EU representation in Ukraine, Representatives of the embassies of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Canada, Germany, and China were at the gathering.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, representatives of the diplomatic corps pointed out the lack of a legal framework for the existence of the list of international sponsors of the war. They argued that this list negatively affected the adoption of important decisions to counter Russian aggression.

The Ministry of Justice stated that disseminating such information on behalf of the state without resolving legislative issues was unacceptable. The National Security and Defense Council stated that there was no need to maintain this website as all the information was already included in the State Sanctions Register.

Parties agreed to transfer the information from the NACP website about sponsors of the war to the Interagency Working Group on the Implementation of State Sanction Policy. NACP will also redirect users from the "International Sponsors of the War" page to the National Security and Defense Council website "State Sanctions Register."

"This is necessary for accurate and uniform informing about the official list of entities subject to sanctions in Ukraine," the government said.

Background

NACP added the Hungarian OTP Bank to the list of international sponsors of the war in the spring of 2023. The agency explained that OTP Bank "not only officially recognizes the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics but also provides preferential loan terms to Russian military personnel, effectively rewarding them for committing war crimes."

In response, Hungary blocked EU decisions to assist Ukraine or impose sanctions against Russia.

At the end of September, NACP suspended the status of war sponsor for OTP Bank to unblock the tranche for Ukraine. The Hungarian bank was completely removed from the list in early October, as Budapest demanded.

Last October, Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Schallenberg openly criticized the NACP blacklist at a meeting of European ministers in Kyiv. Ultimately, the Ukrainian NACP suspended the war sponsor status for the Austrian Raiffeisen Bank for the duration of bilateral consultations involving representatives of the European Commission.