G7 Countries in Talks on Use of Frozen Russian Assets and Compensation for Ukraine

According to the newspaper’s sources, talks on the issue between the G7 countries, involving finance ministers, central bank governors, diplomats and lawyers, have continued actively in recent weeks.

The newspaper’s interlocutors also indicated that the US is putting pressure on the other members of the group to prepare a strategy for the use of frozen Russian assets by the second anniversary of the start of the war in Ukraine.

At the same time, the newspaper pointed out that the countries will have to agree on many controversial issues. For example, they will have to decide whether Kyiv will receive these funds directly and whether they will be used to support the economy and rebuild the country or for military support.

The newspaper writes that support for the initiative is growing in the US Congress, which “creates optimism” in the US presidential administration, but some US officials are concerned that the decision could have unpredictable legal and economic consequences. In particular, they fear that other countries might refuse to hold their funds at the Federal Reserve in New York or in US dollars.

Western countries have frozen about half of the Russian Central Bank’s foreign currency reserves – about 300 billion US dollars – since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Most of these assets are located in Europe. At least since the autumn of 2022, EU institutions have been discussing the possibility of using these assets.

A day earlier, the newspaper “Financial Times” reported that the United States proposed to transfer to Ukraine the assets of the Russian Central Bank frozen in Europe as an “advance payment” for compensation for war losses, which, according to them, Russia would be obliged to pay to Ukraine in any case. At the same time, the German Prosecutor General’s Office announced that it plans to confiscate and transfer frozen Russian assets worth more than 720 million euros to the state budget.

2023-12-21 20:45:00
#begun #urgent #talks #frozen #Russian #assets #Ukraine