Reckoning for the “Kyiv in three days” How Ukraine is seizing Russian assets

The full-scale Russian–Ukrainian war has been ongoing for more than four years, with fighting taking place across all fronts — on the battlefield, in the information space, and in the economic sphere.

In this context, the decision by the State Property Fund of Ukraine to put confiscated assets belonging to Russian citizens up for auction may at first glance appear to be merely an episode in a series of anti-Russian sanctions measures. However, in reality, this reflects a much deeper and more telling process, clearly demonstrating the following fact: Russian businesses had for decades felt more than comfortable in Ukraine, and this situation persisted even after the outbreak of armed confrontation between the two countries.

Thus, the apartments in Kyiv belonging to Russian designer and propagandist Artemy Lebedev, as well as the cars of oligarch Oleg Deripaska, are merely the tip of the iceberg, confirming the scale of Russian capital’s presence in the Ukrainian economy.

It is well known that after Ukraine gained independence, Russian businesses began actively expanding into the country’s market. This included not only industry or energy, but also trade, the restaurant business, real estate, and the banking sector. In Ukraine’s largest cities, Russians owned shopping centres, hotels, office buildings, and luxury residential property.

After the political events of 2014, this situation did not fundamentally change: Russian assets in Ukraine continued to operate and generate profits for their owners. Moreover, many of them successfully adapted to the new conditions, often operating through complex ownership structures. In other words, while fighting was taking place in the east of the country, enterprises, restaurants, and commercial facilities continued to operate in Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, and other Ukrainian cities, with Russian citizens serving as the ultimate beneficiaries. It was a paradoxical situation: on one side of the barricades — war, on the other — economic coexistence generating profits.

With the onset of full-scale hostilities in February 2022, this model began to collapse, but not nearly as quickly as required. Many Russian citizens took prompt steps to preserve their assets: real estate and businesses were transferred to front persons or re-registered to Ukrainian citizens. This allowed a significant portion of Russian capital to avoid immediate confiscation.

That is why today’s auctions appear as a belated continuation of a process that should have begun much earlier. Nevertheless, the very fact of these sales carries important symbolic significance: the Ukrainian state has, albeit belatedly, begun a consistent process of cleansing its economy of Russian presence, and as hidden ownership schemes are uncovered and sanctions pressure intensifies, the list of confiscated assets will continue to expand.

A particular irony of the situation lies in the fact that many of these assets were created and acquired with expectations of long-term stability and predictability. At the same time, entrepreneurs could not have been unaware of the political risks, but evidently considered them manageable. And here we come to the key point.

By making the decision to launch a full-scale war, based on the “Kyiv in three days” scenario, Moscow could not have imagined that more than four years later, the property of Russian citizens — apartments in the centre of the Ukrainian capital, cars, and commercial real estate — would be sold off at auction in Ukraine. This liquidation itself reflects the strategic short-sightedness of the Russian authorities and represents the very “reckoning” that was sooner or later inevitable. It is also a clear illustration of how political decisions taken without regard for long-term consequences inevitably lead to collapse.

In this context, Ukrainian auctions are one link in a long chain of evidence supporting this argument, but it is precisely such seemingly minor episodes that most clearly highlight the central point: the war, launched as a tool to expand influence, has resulted in its rapid contraction. And the cost of this contraction will continue to grow across all dimensions, as expressed in the well-known biblical phrase: “Weighed, measured, and found wanting.”