The Cabinet of Ministers has supported the proposal of the NBU to nationalize 26bn hryvnias of assets of Russian banks withdrawn from the Ukrainian market. The decision of the National Security and Defence Council and the president's signature are still required.

This was announced by the Managing Director of the Deposit Guarantee Fund of individuals (FGVFL) Svetlana Rekrut in an interview with the media.

According to the decision, the state will expropriate highly liquid assets of such banks as "MR-Bank" ("subsidiary" of Sberbank) and Prominvestbank. In particular, funds on the savings account with the NBU, on the banks' correspondent accounts, loans from state companies and liabilities of the parent structures of the same banks.

In addition, Rekrut noted, state-owned bonds will be confiscated, which means that the state represented by the Ministry of Finance will no longer owe anything to Russian banks. Certificates of deposit will also be expropriated, which means that the NBU will not pay them back either.

Also, the corporate rights of these banks will be taken away, so that will allow to have the right to the surplus assets, which will remain after nationalization.

"That is, we expect that after all creditors' claims are satisfied, the insolvent banks will have surplus assets. That means that all lines will receive funds," the head of the FGVFL explained.

She said that in "MR bank" there is 3 billion hryvnia on the savings account, which is enough to satisfy the needs of depositors up to 200 thousand hryvnia and the next turn of creditors and those individuals whose deposits exceed this amount. Creditors of the seventh turn, legal entities, will receive payments at the expense of the sale of the bank assets portfolio.

"The portfolio remains in the range of 20 billion, there are also other assets, particularly real estate," Recruit added. "That's more than enough to cover all lines of creditors except related parties. And we hope to have a surplus, which we will also return to the state."

At the same time, the rights of the parent structures (Russian Sberbank and VEB.RF) should go to the state: we are talking about deposits, current accounts or subordinated debt of the parent structure in the bank. Rekrut explains that this means that the Ukrainian subsidiaries will not have to return anything to the parent structure.

In the same way, the government will take back from the banks loans granted to Ukrainian state companies. It is about four enterprises which are of strategic importance. The amount of this debt to the two banks, without interest, is about 10 billion hryvnia. At the same time, Recruit refused to specify which companies she was referring to.