It’s already clear to everyone: Poroshenko’s lawsuit to lift illegal sanctions is entering the final stretch.
The trial in the Cassation Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court regarding Petro Poroshenko’s claim to overturn the illegal sanctions decree is entering the final stretch.
Lawyer Igor Golovan said this after today’s hearing.
He emphasized that everything is now clear to everyone. Lawyer Ilya Novikov also added that the court still has two dozen pages left to review in the case, so a decision can be expected early next year.
Petro Poroshenko, the author of the Sanctions Law, once again emphasized that they cannot be applied to Ukrainian citizens located in government-controlled territory. The court hearing also presented the transcript of the Verkhovna Rada’s vote on the Sanctions Law, confirming this point. Poroshenko emphasized that imposing sanctions against him as a Ukrainian citizen is a gross violation of the rule of law and the Constitution of Ukraine.
“The specific wording is that sanctions can be applied against a foreign state, a foreign legal entity, a legal entity controlled by a legal entity, or a non-resident individual, as well as stateless foreigners. When we imposed sanctions on individuals permanently residing in the occupied territory, the Security Service of Ukraine’s notification should have stated that they were non-residents and had a high probability of acquiring citizenship of another state. That’s the only way,” the fifth President noted.
“The position is absolutely clear. If you impose sanctions against a Ukrainian citizen, you violate the Constitution, because you are depriving them of their constitutional right to defense. This is an extrajudicial, extralegal, and unconstitutional action on the part of the current president. This is the destruction of the legal system. This is the creation of authoritarianism, where, at will, in 10 minutes, you can deprive someone of property, a right guaranteed by the Constitution,” said Petro Poroshenko.
“The damage President Zelenskyy’s actions have inflicted on Ukraine, its international standing, and the concrete assistance Poroshenko provides to the Armed Forces is difficult to calculate. I hope this farce will finally end in January and the sanctions will be thrown on the scrap heap where they belong. Because we’re talking about the Constitution and the rule of law. And the rule of law is our entry ticket into the European Union. If it’s desecrated as much as President Zelenskyy is doing, we won’t see that prospect,” said attorney Golovan.
Lawyer Ilya Novikov also noted that one of the goals of the sanctions against the Eurolidarity leader was to block his political activity: “While we were sitting here, information came in that the Servant of the People party was planning a congress and preparations for new elections. We said that this was how President Zelenskyy was solving his election problem. Now it turns out we were right. Therefore, this question is absolutely relevant – can the current president, in the seventh year of his five-year term, eliminate any of his competitors by imposing sanctions?” Novikov notes.
During the court hearing, it also emerged that the original text of the Decree, with errors, is still available on the official websites of the President and the National Security and Defense Council, and on the basis of this decree, on February 13, 2025, other agencies began to impose restrictions on the leader of European Solidarity, in particular, blocking his bank accounts and cards.
Earlier, the fifth president stated that Andriy Portnov was the mastermind behind the sanctions against him, and that the presidential office had implemented his plan. “On February 13, immediately after the National Security and Defense Council meeting, during a visit to the Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant , Zelenskyy, standing next to Galushchenko, a Minditchgate participant dismissed from the government, noted that the sanctions were due to Poroshenko’s siphoning off billions. For eleven months now, they’ve been thrashing around here, and we haven’t heard a word about billions,” the fifth president remarked.
The court also, despite government objections, included in the case file the ECHR’s decision of October 16, 2025, which found that sanctioned individuals in Ukraine lack adequate opportunities to protect their rights and due procedural guarantees against arbitrary action during judicial review of sanctions decisions. Council of Europe and European Union documents condemning the extrajudicial sanctions against the opposition leader were also included in the case file.
At previous Supreme Court hearings, Poroshenko’s lawyers showed a film produced by the 1+1 television channel, in which Zelenskyy directly admitted that the National Security and Defense Council is his weapon, allowing him to circumvent the law.
Earlier, at a closed court hearing, the panel of judges reviewed documents marked “For Official Use Only” (for official use only), which served as the basis for the National Security and Defense Council’s decision. According to lawyer Ilya Novikov, some of the documents submitted by the defendants were falsified. Government officials, however, claimed that the sanctions against Poroshenko were imposed for educational purposes.
Earlier, President Zelenskyy’s representative to the Supreme Court acknowledged that changes were made to the signed decree implementing the National Security and Defense Council’s decision on sanctions against Poroshenko, which she called “technical amendments.”
President Zelenskyy’s spokesperson also confirmed earlier during the meeting that the National Bank of Ukraine illegally imposed financial restrictions on Petro Poroshenko.
The next meeting is scheduled for January 5, 2026.
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