Today, the state has destroyed our business. We do not have the right to be inside and to provide services in our coworking space despite the legal grounds we have. Our residents must leave coworking spaces before the expiration of the concluded contracts.
In addition, the authorities, beyond their powers, require departing residents to show proof of purchase of their property (laptops and other equipment) to allow them to take it with them, which is against not only the law but also common sense reason.
The authorities re-registered the objects we rented in their names in the Registry of Real Estate Rights (open data).
However, public information sources (open data) tell us about hundreds of state-owned real estate properties in the same city areas where our coworking spaces were located.
There is a twin building not far from one of our locations, which is owned by a state bank. However, it's not attractive to those who decided to stage an expropriation.
In the same Podilsky district, 92 real estate objects are in communal ownership only (link to the source), not to mention the state property. However, none were suitable for structures accumulating purely civilian objects for wartime needs.
The unjustified seizure of any assets from any investor (both foreign or domestic) without a justified purpose and a proper court decision, as well as the destruction of businesses, is a dangerous departure from the principles of the rule of law.
The situation in which we found ourselves will negatively affect the preservation of the investment climate for foreign investors since everything that happened shows potential risks for people and organizations who intend to invest in business development in Ukraine.
Such state actions also contradict the declared principles of population protection since, as a result of the destruction of our business, hundreds of people who directly or indirectly worked with it lost their jobs.
Due to the project's closure, the state will not receive taxes and other mandatory payments to the budget, which is much of a luxury in the current situation.
Our business was teetering on the edge of unprofitability throughout its existence (first due to COVID-19, then the war). Still, despite this, we regularly paid all statutory payments to the budget.
We understood how important our work is for people who could work fully inside of our spaces during blackouts or hide in our bomb shelters during rocket attacks, getting everything they needed in a critical situation.
During the six years of our work, we were a center of local and international business, a place of unity of creative people. In the last two and a half years, after the full-scale invasion of the aggressor state in Ukraine, we have become a local center of volunteering and support for our citizens and the Defense Forces by the call of the soul and by the duty of a citizen.
For civilians, with the support of property owners, we provided shelter and food during the first three difficult months of the invasion when the enemy stood near the walls of Kyiv. We also bought uniforms and provided the necessities for our mobilized colleagues and members of the DFTG.
Over the past 2.5 years, we have held many charity events in support of the Defense Forces of Ukraine and temporarily displaced people. We have transferred millions of hryvnias of our donations and funds from investor-patrons.
We delivered water, food, clothing, and animal feed to flooded Kherson, bought Christmas gifts for the children of prisoners of war and the killed Ukrainian military men and women, transferred over dozens of kilograms of clothes to those who lost everything in the TOT, and also presented computer equipment to the Armed Forces of Ukraine so that our artillery hit the enemy more accurately and did not feel a lack of material and technical support, provided all the necessary assistance to every military unit that requested it and sponsored the filming of a documentary movie honoring our fallen heroes.
For more than 850 days, we have not stopped helping Ukrainian businesses, providing discount programs, grants, and support for resettled companies from the most war-affected cities of the country. When the enemy meanly struck the state's electric arteries, we stood firm. We did not waver, holding this strike for our residents, friends, and the state's economy. We are not just a company - we are a family that unites many employees, their families, and our residents who have been with us for many years.
The current situation means that we are forced to stop supporting all social and humanitarian projects and sponsoring the military units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the National Guard of Ukraine, whom we have been helping for two and a half years.
The state seized the property that was the basis of our project and belonged to a foreign investor and patron, motivating it by the state needs of wartime. We, having lost the means of production, are forced to stop our commercial activities.
Billions of hryvnias invested by real estate owners in the economy of Ukraine are buried under the pressure of the bureaucratic machine due to the lack of precise legislative regulation regarding compensation for seized property.
What we have encountered today is reminiscent of the actions of our enemy, whose nationalization of industrial facilities and private property, contrary to logic and laws, is gaining massive and uncontrolled proportions.
All actions against our business violate the law and logic, and we will defend our rights in court until we reach a legal result, no matter how long it takes us.
If it is not possible to solve this within the legal framework of Ukraine, the affected party will apply to the European authorities since the investor who was subject to the groundless expropriation of assets is a foreigner.
We understand that war dictates its conditions, but such actions, instead from the arsenal of dictatorial states, do not correspond to the principles of commitment to European values declared by the state and create risks for the country's further post-war economic development and full integration into the European community.
Until this and other problems are solved, hundreds of millions of hryvnias of economic investments, such as salaries, construction expenses, and taxes, will remain frozen indefinitely.