Ukraine is removing its ‘International War Sponsors’ list from the website of the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption after representatives from several countries raised concerns, the Cabinet of Ministers announced.
While the list bore no legal weight, Kyiv created it after the start of the full-scale invasion to put pressure on businesses to exit Russia, arguing that by continuing to operate and pay taxes in Russia, companies were still indirectly funding the war in Ukraine.
Instead of publicly listing the companies and individuals, a decision was made to to transfer the information to the Interdepartmental Working Group on the Implementation of the State Sanctions Policy which will decide if further action is needed.
In a statement on March 19, the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine reported that diplomatic representatives of partner countries had raised concerns in a meeting that day about the lack of a regulatory framework underpinning who appears on the list.
The statement said Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Ministry had been told the list was having a “negative impact” on “important decisions to counter Russian aggression.”
Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice also raised issues about the “inadmissibility of distributing such information on behalf of the state without resolving the issues at the legislative level.”
Ukraine’s National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) had added some 50 multinational companies that operate both in Ukraine and Russia to the list, including Nestle, Philip Morris, Unilever, and PepsiCo.
International partners were generally “terribly unhappy” with the list, Justice Ministry Denys Maliuska told Forbes Ukraine earlier this month.
Sebastian Shehadi
