Khrystyna Khanas

Practice Areas

Khrystyna's main areas of expertise include:

Commercial Disputes

Assets Recovery and Enforcement

Arbitration

Regulatory Compliance

Career

Khrystyna is a dual-qualified English solicitor and Ukrainian advocate, specialising in cross-border commercial litigation and arbitration, with a particular focus on civil fraud disputes. Khrystyna worked on some of the leading high-profile cases in the UK concerning asset tracing and recovery, often involving freezing injunctions, disclosure orders and other forms of interim relief. She has also worked on major fraud disputes relating to crypto assets.

Khrystyna has acted for both Claimants and Defendants in large and complex commercial disputes in the High Court of Justice and arbitration proceedings under the LCIA rules. She has experience in dealing with disputes throughout all stages of proceedings leading up to and including trials, as well as various interim applications and, in particular, complex disclosure exercises.

Khrystyna has deep knowledge and understanding of the political and legal environments in Ukraine and Eurasia more generally. She is a regular contributor to Astraea’s thought leadership work on the region.

Khrystyna completed a PhD in Criminal Justice from Ivan Franko National University in Lviv (Ukraine) in 2013 and a pre-LLM course from Chicago-Kent College of Law at the Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago, USA) in 2025.

Professional Memberships

Law Society of England & Wales (Solicitor)

Ukrainian National Bar Association (Advocate)

Publications

“Recognition and enforcement of Ukrainian judgments against Russian Federation in the UK” – available at: https://www.jibfl.co.uk/articles/recognition-and-enforcement-of-ukrainian-judgments-against-the-russian-federation-in-the-uk

Commentary on recent Court of Appeal judgment in Hulley Enterprises v Russia – available at: https://www.cdr-news.com/categories/litigation/can-states-no-longer-take-issue-with-issue-estoppel/

“Will Russia’s bilateral investment treaties provide paths to compensation in Ukraine?” – available at: https://astraea-group.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Paths-to-compensation-in-Ukraine-formatted-4140-4622-0625-v1.pdf

“Russia's quest for financial independence through the use of digital assets, cryptocurrencies and digital currencies” – available at: Russia's quest for financial independence through the use of digital assets, cryptocurrencies and digital currencies (lexis.com);

“Crypto mining and sanctions evasion: how Russia trades its energy resources” – available at: Astraea_Crypto-Mining-and-Sanctions-Evasion-How-Russia-Trades-its-Energy-Resources_ThoughLeaders4.pdf (astraea-group.com).

“A future financial services regulatory regime for cryptoassets in the UK” – available at: https://astraea-group.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/2025.05.12-Astraea-Article_A-Future-Financial-Services-Regulatory-Regime-for-Cryptoassets-in-the-UK-Final-Published.pdf

“Russia is one step ahead in the game of crypto ‘whack a mole’” – available at: https://astraea-group.com/russia-is-one-step-ahead-in-the-game-of-crypto-whack-a-mole/

“Crypto’s sanctions crossroads: why compliance is now geopolitics” – available at: https://digitalbytes.substack.com/p/cryptos-sanctions-crossroads-why

Languages Spoken

Fluent in English, Ukrainian and Russian languages, and limited working proficiency in Polish.

Education