The owner of Ukrainian vodka distiller Khortytsia, Yevhen Cherniak, has denied allegations that his company has contributed to funding the Russian state budget in a Dec. 30 Facebook post, following allegations by Ukraine’s SBU security service that he had done so.

The SBU charged Cherniak with continuing to do business with Russia despite the on-set of full-scale war on Dec. 29, and courts are currently deciding when and how to confiscate his assets.

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Cherniak claims that the charges against him are impossible, given that Khortytsia  has been under sanctions in Russia since 2014 and had its license revoked on Feb. 24, 2022.

However. the documents in  his case do not mention any tax payments in Russia, but involve companies in Central Asia, Georgia and Azerbaijan.

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“I was not and am not the owner or official of these companies, I have never rented them, none of the company’s management is an official or beneficiary of the companies and factories mentioned in the case and, accordingly, could not buy or sell anything,” Cherniak wrote.

“It is completely absurd to accuse me of this.”

Cherniak also mentioned that he is being searched and arrested in absentia in Russia, which makes it impossible for him to pay or sell anything “either from a legal point of view or from an ethical point of view”.

A Moscow court authorized Cherniak’s arrest in absentia on Aug. 18, accusing him of “financing the armed forces of Ukraine for the purpose of terrorist activities in Russia”. Russia’s Investigative Committee alleges that Cherniak purchased and delivered to the Ukrainian Armed Forces in June “goods intended for military operations in the amount of more than 90 million rubles ($1 million).” Russia also claims that Cherniak and other individuals allegedly “entered into a criminal conspiracy” between February and April 2022 and organized the transfer of funds to the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the amount of more than $5.9 million (500 million rubles).

“Like many Ukrainian companies, we have a situation that I really hope is a mistake and not an attempt to put pressure on the company with the aim of a raider attack on the market leader,” Cherniak said, adding that he plans to make this case public and invited journalists, lawyers and activists to his court hearings.

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine