Ukraine ceded OTP Bank to Hungary to unblock aid from the EU war fund

Five Greek companies were also removed from the list of war sponsors.

The National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NACP), at the request of Hungary, announced the suspension of the international war sponsor status of the Hungarian OTP Bank .

As stated in a message on the NAPC website , the status of an international sponsor of the war was suspended for OTP Bank, as well as five Greek carriers, whom Ukraine accused of illegally transporting Russian oil bypassing the price ceiling.

“This decision was made based on the results of negotiations between representatives of NAPC and representatives of companies and governments of these countries on the termination of cooperation with the Russian Federation,” the NAPC reported.

The department noted that in exchange for this, they expect Hungary to unblock a tranche of 500 million euros from the European Peace Fund and Greece to refuse to block a future package of EU sanctions aimed at reducing the ability of the Russian Federation to continue the war against Ukraine.

The situation around OTP Bank

In May, NAPC announced that the largest Hungarian bank, OTP Bank, was included in the list of war sponsors due to the position of the management of the financial institution to continue working in the Russian Federation and the recognition of the so-called “L/DPR”.

In response to this, Budapest stated that it would block the further imposition of sanctions against the Russian Federation and the allocation of new tranches from the European Peace Fund to Kyiv.

(C)UNIAN 2023