It isn’t often that you’ll find someone taking on The Vatican. Indeed, it’s usually the remit of holiday novel heroes. Tetyana Nesterchuk, however, is doing it for real. Her client, Italian broker Raffaele Mincione, is at the centre of a real estate dispute regarding The Vatican’s 2012 €350m investment in one of Mincione’s funds. Those funds were used to purchase a building in London’s Sloane Avenue which nosedived in value with the building selling 10 years later for a loss of around €140m. The case has already attracted huge media attention and will no doubt continue to do so well into this year.
Aside from tackling the Catholic church, Ukrainian national Nesterchuk is doing everything in her power to aid Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion. For Nesterchuk, the war didn’t start in 2022. The war began in 2014 when her home town of Donetsk was overtaken by Russia-backed separatists before eventually being annexed two years ago. Some of her most vital work now centres on the seizure of Russian state assets, the funds from which she hopes can be redistributed to pay for vital services so sorely needed by the embattled Ukrainian population. She acknowledges that she won’t be able to save Ukraine alone, but she won’t ever stop doing her part to help.