ISTANBUL 

Ukraine has seized assets worth more than $2 million belonging to Dmytro Tabachnyk, a former minister “suspected of high treason.” 

Tabachnyk served as a minister under former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

“The property of the former Minister of Education and Science Dmytro Tabachnyk, who is suspected of high treason, has been seized,” the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said in a statement.

“The total amount of seized assets is more than $2 million. These are primarily real estate, land plots, and money in foreign currency.”

The statement said Tabachnyk tried to deceived authorities by transferring his assets to relatives, but this “scheme” was exposed by the SBU.

The properties seized include an apartment in the capital Kyiv, a residential building, five plots of land in a cottage town near Kyiv, and a bank account with $147,000, the statement added.

The SBU said Tabachnyk was suspected of committing treason by taking “an active part in the organization of pseudo-referendums in captured areas of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.”

“Currently, the traitor is hiding from justice in the temporarily occupied Crimea,” it added.

Last September, Ukraine’s separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and Russian-controlled parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson held referendums on joining Russia.

Moscow said over 98% of people living in the Ukrainian regions supported “accession” to Russia, while Ukraine, European nations, and the US rejected the “sham” votes.

The SBU imposed sanctions on Yanukovych and former high-level officials, including Tabachnyk, in March 2021.