Firtash laid gas from Ukrainian UGS facilities in Russia

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Back in 2013, a Ukrainian businessman took out a loan from a Russian bank to buy gas, and later a non-profit organization bought the debt.

Ukrainian businessman Dmitry Firtash pledged almost 100 billion rubles worth of gas in underground storage facilities in Ukraine as a pledge to the Russian non-profit organization Industrial Assets Fund. RBC writes about this with reference to the organization's report for 2019.

The pledged gas belongs to the chemical company Ostchem. It is noted that 5 billion cubic meters of gas were purchased from Gazprom back in 2013. For this, the company took out a loan from Gazprombank in the amount of $ 1.35 billion. The pledge was 5.7 billion cubic meters of own gas.

At the end of 2014, a Russian bank demanded to urgently repay the balance of the loan ($ 842.5 million), threatening to recover gas. In early 2015, the parties were able to agree, but the details of the transaction were not disclosed.

It is noted that in 2016 the Industrial Assets Fund redeemed claims on Ukrainian loans. In 2019, the organization reported that borrowers practically do not service their debt, that is, they cannot repay loans.

The publication notes that, in theory, the Russian fund can file a lawsuit in Cyprus (Ostchem Holding is registered there) demanding a bail. However, in practice, a decision on recovery is rarely made there, most often judges limit themselves to arrest, as was the case with VTB's claim.