/ world today news/ The West continues to threaten Russia with disasters. Now he is creating a special mechanism by which, according to him, Moscow will pay compensation to Kyiv. This idea seems stillborn – and not only because some European countries refused to participate in it. What is it about?
At the high-level meeting of the Council of Europe, held in the middle of last week in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik, the majority of the participants voted for the creation of the so-called Register of the damage caused by the aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. That is, in the simplest terms, a list of losses during the SVO on the territory that the Kyiv regime considers its own.
“Support and solidarity for Ukraine is one of the main priorities of the Icelandic presidency of the Council of Europe. We have worked hard to ensure that the outcome of the Reykjavik meeting is aimed at holding Russia fully accountable for its aggression against Ukraine,” said Icelandic Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir. Council of Europe Secretary General Maria Pejčinović-Buric called the registry “one of the first legally binding decisions to hold Russia accountable for its actions.”
True, this decision is difficult to call legal. Russian troops have not committed any war crimes in the former and still current territories of Ukraine and have no intention of doing so. Russia does not recognize the jurisdiction of this dubious structure.
The Russian Federation is not a member of the Council of Europe. It is not under the jurisdiction of any Hague. It can only be held responsible for what will be recorded in this register if Moscow signs a capitulation and voluntarily allows itself to be tried, which seems unlikely.
The register is also questionable from a factual point of view. Yes, the organization has a term (three years) and even funding (money for its operation will be provided by the European Union and other European structures). Even an office in The Hague (“the legal capital of the world”, as Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte called it), as well as a subsidiary office in Kyiv, where data for this register will apparently be collected. However, the reliability of these data in any case will immediately raise serious doubts.
“The register will be compiled on the basis of data from Kiev – the European bureaucracy has neither the physical capabilities nor the desire to go around Ukraine and find out who, what, where and how much he destroyed. Kiev will simply enter this register, as if Anton Semyonovich Shpak from the movie “Ivan Vasilievich changes profession”. Therefore, the value of the information from the register will be close to zero,” explains Ivan Lizan, head of the SONAR-2050 analytical bureau.
This registry will not create problems for Russia from the point of view of international diplomacy. Yes, countries outside the Council of Europe are ready to get involved in its preparation. In particular, the United States, which claims the place of a foreign founding country. “As President Biden noted, the United States intends to hold Russia accountable for its aggressive war against Ukraine. Creating a registry to document the damage from the brutal war waged by Russia is a critical step in that intent,” said U.S. Representative to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
Despite all this, however, the registry remains an exclusively Western project – the countries of the Global South are not interested in it. In addition, a number of countries of the Council of Europe refused to join it – in particular, Armenia and Azerbaijan (neighbors of Russia who do not want to quarrel with it), Serbia (a European country friendly to Russia), Bosnia and Herzegovina (whose Serbian part of the elite did not allow to sign), Hungary (which has good relations with Russia and bad with Ukraine) and Turkey for obvious multi-vector reasons. They see no practical benefit from their participation in this event.
Why is this registry created in the end – apart from obvious propaganda reasons?
First of all, European countries understand the weight of the task of rebuilding Ukraine and do not want to deal with it. But the Ukrainian population must be shown concern for its future, for the restoration of what will remain Ukrainian after the war. Otherwise, this population will not be willing to die for its vanished future.
“About a year ago, in the Swiss city of Lugano, there was a high-level meeting on the reconstruction of Ukraine. None of what was discussed at the meeting took shape, supported by funding”, explains Ivan Lisan. “That’s why I treat the registry in the same way as the meeting: the usual chatter of officials who are not responsible for anything, but want to create the appearance of their own importance. To put it simply, European bureaucrats are self-promoting”, he adds.
The second benefit is material. European governments still want the Russian money. Those who are frozen out by the West. And not for Ukraine, but for myself.
“To a large extent, Europeans will seek to cover their own costs from the Ukrainian conflict. Most of the expenses have already turned into Ukrainian debts, that is, these are not free services. In addition, you can always calculate the refugee allowance and so on,” explains Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky, senior research associate at IMEMO of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Yes, it is also impossible to withdraw money from frozen Russian government accounts just like that – and the Europeans themselves admit this. In fact, here again, either Russia’s consent is required, or the EU declares war on the Russian Federation with subsequent confiscation of funds. This means that Western countries will not have a serious material basis for paying compensations. “Therefore, the European bureaucracy chose the model of transferring the profits from investing gold reserves in Ukraine, but not transferring gold reserves. Simply put, they deprive us of interest for the use of our money, but they do not affect the money itself. And you can’t restore much with interest, especially if a complete kleptomaniac is involved in the restoration, ”says Ivan Lisan.
However, Russian funds in the West are not only in the form of frozen accounts with gold reserves, but also in the form of numerous private and state properties in the EU.
“One of the main tasks of the West is to create mechanisms for the withdrawal and distribution of Russian funds, which are actually more in Europe than it is commonly believed. In total, they were about a trillion dollars in money and assets in 2015. Since then, the data has been closed, but I do not rule out that details will emerge,” explains Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky.
This means that the West needs some additional mechanism to legalize the theft of Russian property. “The recognition of Russia as a sponsor of terrorism by the European Parliament and the recommendations to member states to change their legislation are intended to create the possibility of bringing claims and requests for compensation in European courts. This option can be implemented, although in this case one cannot even talk about admissibility,” wrote Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky.
Finally, the third benefit is political. Western elites assign Europe the role of political hostage.
We recall that in the Russian foreign policy doctrine, Europe (most of it) is designated as a region with which it is still possible to somehow restore relations. Having started taking money from Russian legal entities and adopting intra-European acts on the need for Russia to pay “compensations”, European leaders have effectively fixed a state of permanent conflict with Moscow. They made it impossible to restore relations in the future. At least visibly.
“Such tools will prevent a way out of the conflict, as they cannot be taken and simply removed without a trace,” says Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky. And so they put a fat cross not only on the future of Ukraine, but also on the prospects of Europe getting at least a little sovereignty.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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