Resolving the situation with the management of russian ships and vessels is a matter of national security, so the Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA) together with the State Service of Maritime and Inland Water Transport and Shipping of Ukraine (Shipping Administration) have issued a joint statement to the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.

The joint statement was preceded by:

The storage of arrested vessels at the berths of ports also harms their economic activities, as it leads to blocking of berths.

“Standing - these assets lose their economic value. The only right decision is to obtain court orders with the legal wording “sale”. It is this mechanism that will allow transferring funds to the state budget, ensuring the interests of Ukraine,” emphasized the Head of ARMA Olena Duma.

The Ministry of Communities and Territories Development of Ukraine has initiated a change in the form of management of seized assets from a management agreement to sale. “In order to form a unified state policy on compensation for damages caused by russian armed aggression and to fill the state budget, the Ministry of Development advocates changing the form of management of seized assets - they must be officially prepared for sale. This will reduce the burden on the Shipping Administration, which is currently storing ships. After all, due to downtime, overloaded berths, the vessels themselves deteriorate and lose value, significant funds are spent on their storage, and there is a constant risk of losing confiscated vessels due to shelling of port infrastructure. And this, in turn, threatens the national security of Ukraine, so we decided to appeal to the National Security and Defense Council to provide legal grounds for the sale of the seized vessels,”  - said Oleksiy Kuleba, Vice Prime Minister for Reconstruction of Ukraine - Minister of Communities and Territories Development.

ARMA also appealed to the Head of the Security Service of Ukraine, as the subject of the initiative on the agenda of the National Security and Defense Council, to support the initiative of ARMA and the Shipping Administration to change the way ARMA manages seized vessels exclusively through their sale and to ensure the interests of the state.

The National Agency emphasizes the need to urgently consider at the NSDC meeting the issue of guiding procedural heads of prosecutor's offices at all levels and pre-trial investigation bodies on the expediency of applying to general jurisdiction courts to change the way ARMA manages seagoing vessels exclusively through their sale, both those that have already been transferred to ARMA for the selection of a manager and those that are planned to be transferred to ARMA.