Former Head of the State Agency for Investment and National Projects of Ukraine Vladyslav Kaskiv has said that he voluntarily returned to Ukraine and decided to repay losses to the state regardless of the final court decision on this issue.

"I really returned to Ukraine voluntarily. My position is simple. I will prove my case in court. On September 18, I asked the Panamanian authorities to allow me to voluntarily come to Ukraine. On October 27, the Supreme Court of Panama granted my request. At the same time, the court secured the international guarantees of Ukraine, which cannot be withdrawn, on not bringing additional charges," Kaskiv wrote on his Facebook page on Wednesday.

He also said that "in order to stop speculation on the losses to the state, I decided to compensate them regardless of the final court decision."

"For the same reasons I decided to pay for the flight myself," Kaskiv wrote.

As reported, Kaskiv was declared internationally wanted under Part 5, Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine on charges of "large-scale misappropriation of property by an official through abuse of office and through collusion with a group of persons" and under Part 2 of Article 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine on "forgery by an official." He is suspected of entering into a criminal conspiracy in 2012 with other persons to embezzle the means of the state budget of Ukraine in the amount of about UAH 7.5 million.

On September 8, 2016, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office received confirmation from Interpol that Kaskiv had been arrested in Panama. On September 12, a court in Panama granted Kaskiv a $600,000 bail, after which he applied for political asylum.

In March 2017, it became known that Panama had refused to grant political refugee status to Kaskiv.

On November 1, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said that Kaskiv had been extradited from Panama to Ukraine and taken to the Main Investigation Department of the Prosecutor General's Office.