Armoured vehicles to be returned to Ukrainian savings bank by Hungarian Tax and Customs Administration

The Hungarian National Tax and Customs Administration (NAV) will return the armored vehicles seized from Ukraine's Oschadbank on Thursday morning, the legal representative of the Ukrainian institution said.

Dr. Lóránt Horváth said that the investigating authority also informed them that “the vehicles were not seized, meaning that no decision was made regarding either their seizing or their release.”

According to Horváth, this means that until the government decree was issued on March 9, i.e., for more than four days, “the exceptionally valuable funds belonging to a foreign state organization as well as the armoured vehicles were held by Hungarian state authorities without any legal basis.”

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry claims that there was no legal basis for the Hungarian authorities to intercept two Ukrainian cash transport vehicles on March 5 at a rest stop on the M0 ring road near Budapest.

On Monday, the Hungarian government issued a decree stating that the legal status of the assets seized from the Ukrainian cash transport vehicles could not be determined at the scene and that the transport was not carried out in compliance with standard international practice. According to the government decree signed by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and published in the Hungarian Gazette, it is a matter of national security to find out where the Ukrainian assets seized in two cash transport vehicles last Thursday came from, as well as what their destination and intended purpose were.

Responding to Telex's inquiry at the time, Dr. Lóránt Horváth stated that the transport fully complied with Hungarian and international standards, adding that "Oschadbank has been transporting cash along this route since 2022 with the knowledge of the Hungarian authorities. The cargo cannot be considered out of the ordinary in terms of scale either."

​​On Sunday, the Ukrainian Savings Bank announced that it demands that the Hungarian authorities return the money and gold seized from its cash-in-transit vehicles.