MOSCOW, July 6 (RAPSI) – The Moscow City Court has upheld the seizure of the Lipetsk factory of the Roshen confectionery owned by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, RAPSI reported on Monday.

The Basmanny District Court in Moscow has ruled in favor of seizing a warehouse, four shops, an auxiliary building and seven parcels of land that are part of the Roshen confectionary company in Lipetsk. Roshen assessed the value of the property at 2 billion rubles (about $36mln).

Russia’s Investigative Committee, which opened a case against Roshen this spring, said it embezzled 180 million rubles ($3.2mln) from the government in the form of an illegal VAT refund. The specific individual or individuals suspected of this have not been named.

Oleg Kazakov, deputy director general of Roshen’s Lipetsk facility, believes this is an attempt to force Poroshenko to sell Roshen at a below-market price. He said that the investigation into Lipetsk confectionary’s case “is designed to reduce the value of this asset.”

Roshen is a major candy producer with an annual output of 450,000 metric tons of confectionery goods. The corporation has assets in Ukraine, Lithuania, Hungary and Russia. When Poroshenko was running for president a year ago, he promised to sell Roshen, but has not fulfilled his promise yet.