The owner of Ukrlandfarming Oleh Bakhmatiuk is confident that he is right and law enforcement authorities acted illegally in the case of VAB Bank belonged to him, and he is ready to applications seeking to extradite him after the decision of the appeal chamber of the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) of Ukraine about his arrest in absentia and he is confident that they will be futile.

"They have already appealed to Interpol, but Interpol refused and replied that they know there I stay, there are legal conventions between states, please contact them. If you want to contact Austria for extradition, let them contact, what's the problem? I'm sure that we will win!" he told Interfax-Ukraine by phone on Friday.

At the same time, Bakhmatiuk said that such a decision by the HACC would stop the peace process he initiated on debt restructuring.

"We are ready for any investigative actions, but according to international standards. There is no ground for the case, exactly nothing have been achieved. We only see that no one needs a potential solution to the problem, especially Sytnyk and NABU, who do uncontrolled things using their impunity," the businessman said.

According to him, there are no investigative actions in the case, and instead of investigating the activities of officials, the NABU is engaged in pressing companies and people from the holding, taking advantage of the limited public appearances due to lockdown.

The ex-owner of the bank also said that he would appeal against the actions of the HACC judges in the High Council of Justice, stressing that in the identical cases against former Minister of Tax and Income Oleksandr Klymenko and former head of the Presidential Administration Andriy Kliuyev, the appeal chamber of the HACC refused to apply preventive measures in the form of arrest.

Bakhmatiuk said that he would appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, but noted with regret that his decision would appear no earlier than in one and a half to two years.

Commenting on the reaction of government bodies of Ukraine to his proposal on debt restructuring, the businessman said that only the Deposit Guarantee Fund reacted positively, as this would allow it to receive significantly more funds for the assets of the banks withdrawn from the market compared with the existing procedure. Responses from other government agencies to the restructuring proposal are still absent, the former owner of VAB Bank and bank Financial Initiative said.

He also added that the HACC decision and the rejection of the proposed peaceful resolution of the dispute worsened the economic prospects of Ukrlandfarming, which is already experiencing difficulties due to the crisis caused by COVID-19.

"I received three "bonuses" – lockdown, the wanted list, and exile. Never mind, we are already used to living in a crisis: we have sown, now we are going to harvest," Bakhmatiuk said.