The Kyiv-based soft drinks manufacturer Rosinka Corporation is asking the central and city authorities to assist it in resolving a lawsuit that has been ongoing since 2015 with Sberbank JSC (Kyiv, a branch of the Russian PJSC Sberbank of Russia), as it is strategically important for food security country, the enterprise should not be under the control of the aggressor country of the Russian Federation.

Director General of the corporation Serhiy Herman said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Friday that the company was declared bankrupt in October 2016 by the decision of the Commercial Court of Vinnytsia region and a liquidation procedure was opened.

"Since 2015, the enterprise began to "throw into confusion." Several enterprises, including the branch of Sberbank in Ukraine, using the operating accounts payable of the plant owed to them, decided to withdraw the plant as an asset through bankruptcy," Herman said.

According to him, before 2015 the enterprise worked stably and exported its products to 38 countries of the world.

"After 2015, pushing over the issue of who owns the plant led to the degradation of the production and disruption of the financial and operational cycle of the Rosinka plant, and ultimately to the loss of all existing contracts and the loss of jobs by the plant's employees. Before 2019, we managed to save a small team of about 200 people, but then everything changed," he added.

Herman recalled that it was possible to avoid the transfer of the asset under the control of the Russian financial institution thanks to the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, who in 2018-2019, by his decisions, did not allow the transfer of the land plot under the plant to Sberbank, seizing it.

According to the director, this measure made it possible to temporarily save the work of the enterprise.

However, on January 3, 2020, Sberbank seized the plant's territory under an act handed over to it by a private executor, after which the plant's property was described without the presence of management and its tenants and was transferred to third parties controlled by bank employees within three days.

"A Ukrainian company – a supplier for Ukrainian strategic enterprises, ministries, Armed Forces of Ukraine, state authorities – is handed over to Russian entrepreneurs by a decision of a Ukrainian court," Herman said at the press conference.

Herman recalled that after the Russian military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the adoption of law 2116-IX on the seizure of the property of the aggressor country of the Russian Federation in March, he turned to law enforcement agencies with a request to help return the plant to state ownership for its further work to provide Armed Forces of Ukraine and people of Kyiv with water and soft drinks, as well as the use of 20,000 square meters of storage facilities for the storage of humanitarian goods.

According to Herman, in view of the foregoing, he turned to the Ukrainian military, who, acting within the framework of the law, ensured constant protection of the enterprise and prevented the final plunder of its assets.

"Unfortunately, none of the law enforcement agencies provided a clear answer, and this despite the introduction of martial law and a clearly proven scheme for controlling the plant by Russian structures. The plant was guarded by structures that received payment from the Sberbank of Russia," the director of Rosinka said.

According to the director, the enterprise lost products worth millions of hryvnias, equipment, raw materials, materials, and other equipment. "Rosinka was not bankrupt, there was a hype around our enterprise. We wrote complaints and inquiries and did not receive a response to them, only from the President's Office, which took control of this matter," Herman said.

He also said that Rosinka has just started calculating the losses caused to the plant during the control over it by third parties, but UAH 6 million is already needed to repair an artesian well for water production.

Among other things, the director said that during the defense of Kyiv against Russian troops, a canteen was organized at the enterprise to feed representatives of the territorial defense of Kyiv, volunteers and the military.

"We ask you to support the reconstruction of the Rosinka plant, both financially and legally. There is no place for Russian structures in a united and independent Ukraine," the director of Rosinka said, adding that the resumption of the enterprise's work will help restore the country's economy.