Yanukovych’s Debt or How Sergei from Zaporizhzhia Conned putin out of $ 3 billion

Everyone has probably already heard that yesterday the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (UKSC) passed a judgment on Yanukovych’s 3 billion debt, which we wrote about (back in 2019). Let’s briefly explain what happened because Facebook has already spread that we won, and we can pay nothing back. It’s not exactly true, but the judgment is still very, VERY positive.

Anyone who has read our article knows that the main argument of Ukraine for protection against debt collection was pressure from Russia and the compulsion to abandon integration with the EU in exchange for those the same $3 billion (the first tranche of the promised 15). Duress is a longstanding concept in English contract law, but English courts have never applied them to states. This, in fact, was the uniqueness of this case and the revolutionary nature of today’s judgment. What did the court say?

First, the court did not recognize as duress Russia’s threats regarding economic restrictions and sanctions in the event of Ukraine’s integration with the EU. According to the judges, such things are traditional in international politics and practiced by Britain itself, at least since the time of the American War of Independence from Britain itself. The same thing happened in the time of Napoleon, and the same thing happens today, when the British government website has a separate section dedicated to sanctions and embargoes — this is a legitimate tool for states to defend their interests.

It seemed that this was where our revolutionary concept collapsed. But everything would be really sad if it weren’t for a native of Zaporizhzhia, Sergei Glazyev, who, as early as September 2013, as an adviser to the Pitun, hinted that integration with the EU could have dire consequences for Ukraine — up to its separation with the help of military force. This has really interested English judges much more because duress, aka coercion, is more than obvious here. Especially considering that the threats later materialized.

So this is #victory, you say? Not really. The current Supreme Court case was not a cassation on the merits (the judgment is here). The opponent of Ukraine — the Kremlin trust, through which 3 billion was paid, generally asked in previous instances to adopt a summary judgment — this is something like a court order for debt collection when everything is more than obvious. The first and appellate instances opened the way for this, but it did not pass in the Supreme Court. Therefore, now the parties will return to the consideration of the case on the merits, in which Ukraine will already be able to insist on a valid argument with duress, confirmed by the Supreme Court.