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Lukoil denies Ukraine Security Service’s accusations of unlawful actions

"Lukoil operates in full compliance with the law," Lukoil’s press service chief, Vitaly Matushkin, told TASS

Lukoil gas station EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV

Lukoil gas station

© EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV

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MOSCOW, January 16 /TASS/. Lukoil has categorically denied accusations of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) launched against the group’s sister companies, which, it claims, were allegedly involved in unlawful actions, Lukoil’s press service chief, Vitaly Matushkin, told TASS on Friday.

“Lukoil has categorically denied accusations of unlawful actions on the part of sister companies of the Lukoil Group. Lukoil operates in full compliance with the law. All deliveries to the territory of Ukraine have been carried out in strict compliance with international law and the Ukrainian legislation,” Matushkin said on Friday.

According to TASS previous reports, Ukraine’s Security Service has initiated criminal proceedings on charges of “financing terrorism” (articles 209, 258-5 of Ukraine’s Penal Code) against business structures affiliated with the Lukoil and VETEK Groups of companies.

According to Ukraine’s Security Service, in 2013-2014, Lukoil officials used the sea terminals in the Crimean ports of Feodosiya, Kherson, Izmail, Nikolayev and Odessa, as well as checkpoints on Ukraine’s western border and on the border with Belarus, to smuggle more than 2 million tons of petroleum products worth about $2 billion avoiding customs control formalities via companies affiliated with Lukoil.

Ukraine’s Security Service claims that those undeclared revenues were later transferred to the accounts of the affiliated companies which spent them to finance the activities of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.

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