Central Bank of Russia assets frozen by the West could be leveraged to fund the rebuilding of war-torn Ukraine.
International momentum on both sides of the Atlantic is building for Ukraine to benefit from Russian assets frozen due to Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion.
The Restoring Justice for Ukraine conference in The Hague on Tuesday saw 44 countries back a special tribunal to address Moscow’s ongoing aggression and support a move for «immobilized Russian sovereign assets» to be used to help rebuild the war-torn country.
With continued U.S. military aid for Kyiv held up in Congress amid a debate about how Europe will fund its war efforts, a different weapon against Russia could be deployed to leverage around $300 billion of Central Bank of Russia assets frozen in the West.
Sanctions aimed at isolating Moscow from the global financial system and choking its revenue to wage war included targeting the Russian assets, which are largely in foreign currency, gold and government bonds.
Around 70 percent of them worth €190 billion ($206 billion) are held in the Belgian central securities depository Euroclear, but there are concerns over whether seizing the assets wholesale would undermine its reputation as a safe place to invest.
«They’ll do it, they just have to find a legal way to do this,» said Scheherazade Rehman, professor of international affairs at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. «They also fear Russian retaliation on European assets and that’s not inconsequential.»
Rehman, who has advised institutions including the U.S. State Department and the World Bank, said discussions about frozen Russian assets are «less aggressive» from European leaders than those in Canada, the U.
