Major global banks, including JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Citigroup and Credit Agricole, are “committing war crimes” by financing companies that ship Russian oil, a top Ukrainian official said.
In an interview with the Financial Times, parts of which were published late on Friday, Oleg Ustenko, economic adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, claimed that the financial institutions were guilty of “helping the Putin regime in this specific way”, referring to trade in Russian hydrocarbons.
The revenue, in turn, is allegedly being used to fund Moscow’s offensive against its neighbor, Kiev claims.
The official also told journalists that Ukraine’s Ministry for Justice is going to sue the banks at the International Criminal Court once the conflict is over. Ustenko pointed out that Kiev’s security services are keeping tabs on those lenders, which are supporting Russian fossil fuel trade.
According to the FT, earlier this week the presidential adviser sent letters to the CEOs of JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Citigroup and Credit Agricole, in which Ustenko urged the financial institutions to stop providing credit to companies that trade Russian oil and sell shares in state-backed oil and gas groups Gazprom and Rosneft.
The Ukrainian official reportedly accused the banks of “prolonging” the conflict and warned they would not be allowed to take part in the postwar reconstruction of Ukraine.
The letters reportedly stressed, among other things, that HSBC’s and Credit Agricole’s asset management arms still hold shares in Gazprom and Rosneft, Russia’s state oil and gas firms. Citigroup allegedly provides credit facilities to another Russian oil and gas giant, Lukoil, as well as to Vitol, a Dutch energy company that trades in Russian oil, according to the letters seen by the FT.
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