Ex-president says assets seizure attempts to hide Kiev's failings

PanARMENIAN.Net - Former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich said on Friday, March 18 Kiev's new government was trying to obscure its failings by pushing through a law to confiscate his alleged offshore assets, Reuters reports.

Ukraine's parliament provisionally approved on Thursday a law allowing the government to seize what it says are offshore assets of the Kremlin-backed former president without a court order. Yanukovich has largely stayed out of public view since his ouster.

"The conversations about the "mythical billions" of Yanukovich are nothing more than an attempt by the present political losers to distract Ukrainians from the fact they have brought the country to collapse. Politically and economically," Yanukovich said in written comments to Reuters.

Ukrainians have grown increasingly impatient with Kiev's new leaders for not doing enough to tackle endemic corruption.

Cosy ties between politicians and business flourished under Yanukovich and the former president is widely reviled in Ukraine - both by those who opposed him in the street protests and his former supporters in the east of the country who say he abandoned them by fleeing to Russia.

Yanukovich said his assets in Ukraine consisted of one private house and bank accounts with less than 29 million hryvnia, which have already been confiscated by state authorities.

A letter from Ukraine's general prosecutor, a copy of which was provided to Reuters, confirmed that he had no bank accounts abroad, the former president added.

Yanukovich said the law was being promoted by corrupt officials known for illegally seizing private assets, a practice known as "raiding."