ARMA generates billions in state budget revenue, but systemic problems persist – ILI Shadow Report
The state budget received over UAH 3.67 billion in 2024-2025 from the management of seized assets transferred to the Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA). This is according to the "Shadow Report on ARMA's Activities" by the Institute of Legislative Ideas (ILI) analytical center.
"In 2024, the state budget received UAH 1.5 billion, and in 2025 – over UAH 2.17 billion. However, these high revenues do not indicate uniformly effective performance by the Agency, since 98% of last year's funds came from just a few large assets," ILI experts noted.
In other areas, ARMA's performance also remains uneven. In 2025, out of 184 auctions held for the sale of seized property, only 41 were successful. The remaining auctions failed due to low competition and weak demand for the assets.
"84 auctions were repeat attempts to sell assets that had already been put up for sale before. In other words, this involves 100 unique lots, a significant portion of which were repeatedly put up for auction due to a lack of buyers," the Shadow Report states.
ILI noted that in 2024, the number of identified and traced assets grew from 96,000 to 146,000, but this is not enough for ARMA to understand their subsequent fate. There is no information on how many of the identified assets were ultimately seized and confiscated.
"Under these conditions, ARMA is showing large numbers of identified assets without understanding what happened to them afterward," the analysts warn.
ILI emphasizes that one of ARMA's persistent systemic problems remains delays in transferring assets into management – long timeframes for signing acceptance-transfer acts, lifting seizures, and so on. In some cases, more than a year passes between the conclusion of a contract and the actual transfer of property.
"The ARMA reform is meant to change these approaches, but it is currently impossible to assess this in practice given the small number of tenders announced for selecting asset managers. Selection of managers for simple assets has not even begun," the experts stressed.
According to ILI's assessment, in 2024-2025 ARMA showed moderate progress in performing its functions of asset identification, management, and disposal. At the same time, maintenance of the Unified State Register of Assets seized in criminal proceedings, as well as asset return, show limited progress. Institutional capacity also remains at a moderate level due to the unfinished selection process for the Director and staff shortages.
"An end-to-end system for tracking assets from the moment of identification to their return to the state needs to be introduced, transparency in the work of asset managers needs to be improved, the Unified State Register of Seized Assets needs to be integrated with other state systems, and Ukrainian legislation needs to be harmonized with EU standards," the study's authors recommend.