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Ukraine sanctions former president Poroshenko and prominent oligarchs

Members of Parliament from the European Solidarity party blocked legislative proceedings in protest of sanctions against their leader Petro Poroshenko.
byMaria Tril
13/02/2025
3 minute read
sanctions on oligarchs
Members of Parliament from the European Solidarity party blocking legislative proceeding in protest of sanctions against their leader Petro Poroshenko. Credit: European Solidarity
Ukraine sanctions former president Poroshenko and prominent oligarchs

Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) has imposed sanctions on several prominent Ukrainian figures, including former President Petro Poroshenko, the NSDC reported.

Former President Poroshenko, now a European Solidarity party legislator, faces sanctions for alleged high treason. Investigators allege he collaborated in purchasing coal from Russian-occupied regions of Eastern Ukraine during his presidency from 2014 to 2019. The suspected scheme reportedly involved prominent pro-Russian political figure Viktor Medvedchuk.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the new sanctions in his evening address on 12 February, without naming specific individuals.

Zelenskyy stated that “everyone who destroyed Ukraine’s national security and helped Russia” should be held accountable.

“The billions earned by effectively selling Ukraine, Ukrainian interests, and security should be blocked and used to protect Ukraine and Ukrainians,” Zelenskyy said.

Sources close to Poroshenko and within the NSDC confirmed his inclusion in the sanctions list.

Poroshenko called the sanctions against him “a colossal blow to internal unity.” He stated that “absolutely illegal restrictions” had been imposed on him.

“There are many accomplices to this crime: the entire Zelenskyy team, the cabinet, which was pressured into participating in this absurd show, the members of his NSDC who quietly raised their hands, but it is Zelenskyy himself who ordered, executed, and signed it,” Poroshenko said in his video.

Members of Parliament from Poroshenko’s European Solidarity party blocked the parliament’s rostrum on February 13. According to parliamentary sources, they displayed placards reading “Ukraine is not Russia,” “No to political repressions,” “No to dictatorship,” “No to authoritarianism,” and “Think about victory, not elections.”

Who else was included in the sanctions list?

The sanctions list also includes businessman Igor Kolomoisky, billionaire Konstantyn Zhevaho, former PrivatBank co-owner Hennady Boholiubov, and Viktor Medvedchuk, a former MP from the pro-Russian political party banned in Ukraine who was accused of treason.

The decree imposes indefinite sanctions that block the targeted individuals from accessing their Ukraine-based assets and prohibit them from engaging in financial transactions, along with additional restrictions. These include the suspension or revocation of licenses, prohibition of privatization, technology transfer, securities transactions, and contractual agreements.

Business tycoon Igor Kolomoisky faces fraud charges. He was arrested on 2 September 2023, in Ukraine on charges of fraud and money laundering. Investigators suspect Kolomoisky of laundering assets and embezzling 15 billion hryvnias ($359 million) from PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest bank by assets.

Former PrivatBank co-owner Hennady Boholiubov left Ukraine by train to Chelm on June 24, 2024. According to investigators, he used forged documents under the name of Mykola Kupriyanovich Syumak, a 67-year-old resident of Volyn Oblast. “I don’t know if I will return to Ukraine,” Boholiubov told Ukrainska Pravda in July 2024. A Kyiv court ordered his arrest in November 2024.

Authorities suspect billionaire Konstantyn Zhevaho of embezzlement from Finance and Credit Bank. French police detained him in Courchevel in December 2022. He posted bail of $1 million. France’s Supreme Court rejected Ukraine’s extradition request in November 2023.

Viktor Medvedchuk, a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician and businessman known for his close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, faced house arrest in 2021 on treason charges. He escaped in February 2022 but was later captured by Ukrainian forces. Russia received him in a September 2022 prisoner exchange for 200 Ukrainian soldiers.

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