Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko has said that he was unable to attend the Global Forum on Asset Recovery, which is held in Washington, due to the situation with the suspicion of former Georgian president and leader of the Movement of New Forces party Mikheil Saakashvili in getting money from businessman Serhiy Kurchenko, a fugitive ally of former President Viktor Yanukovych.

"The U.S.-British forum on asset recovery is being held in the United States for several days. I planned to speak there, and I had something to say there. Thanks to our activities, we have the largest return of criminal assets in recent years, namely, $1.5 billion from Yanukovych's organized criminal group, which has already been transferred to Ukraine's state budget. However, the events around today's case did not allow me to go there," he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday.

Lutsenko noted that the interior minister and the justice minister were also unable to leave Ukraine because of the "Saakashvili case."

He noted that the heads of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) were present at the conference.

"Mr. Sytnyk [NABU Director Artem Sytnyk] has an opportunity to speak and make the world happy by the fact that the NABU returned 26,000 hryvnias to the state budget through special confiscation. This is also a worthy result for the young institution," he said.