Cypriot attorney Andreas Sofocleous, who has numerous connections in Ukraine, and employees of his firm Andreas M. Sofocleous & Co LLC, which has offices in Ukraine, as well as former CEO of Smart Holding Alexey Pertin, have been added to Ukraine’s sanctions list, Interfax.ua informs.
According to Presidential Decree No. 698, dated October 8, and a decision by the National Security and Defense Council, sanctions were also imposed on Chrysostomos, Charoula, and Christina Sofocleous, Constantina Alkiviadous, Christina Mihailidou, Elena Iona, Aphrodite Loucaidou, Nicole Garofita Aggonas, Anna Korelidou, and Menelaos Sazos.
Andreas Sofocleous and other Cypriot lawyers on the list are listed as beneficiaries of several Ukrainian companies. Sofocleous’ name has been mentioned in connection with ownership disputes over Kyiv’s Dynamo football club in the 2000s and TVi in 2013, as well as in more recent legal battles with Viktor Medvedchuk over the management of President Hotel.
Sofocleous was also a minority shareholder of Latvia’s PrivatBank, and his company was a trustee for the Smart Trust and Step Trust, to which Smart Holding founder Vadim Novinsky transferred assets in late 2022. However, Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice later removed these trusts from the register of ultimate beneficiaries, believing Novinsky was attempting to evade sanctions imposed on him by Ukraine at the same time.
The same decree imposes sanctions on the Cypriot companies Proteas Management Services Ltd, Proteas Trustee Services Ltd, Proteas Trustees Ltd, and Proteas Consulting and Services Limited, which are part of Andreas Sofocleous’ group.