The United States announced that it had found a way to confiscate Russia’s frozen assets “in accordance with international law.”

2023-12-16 13:29:25

Western countries are now actively studying ways to confiscate frozen Russian assets for the benefit of Ukraine, the Financial Times newspaper reports.

It is claimed that in recent weeks, the US has been taking a more assertive position in private negotiations regarding the seizure of frozen Russian assets. At G7 meetings, the US claims that there is a way to confiscate assets that is “consistent with international law.”

“Members of the G7 and other states can seize Russian assets as a countermeasure to encourage Russia to stop aggression,” says a US government document seen by the newspaper.

A US official told the Financial Times that Washington is actively negotiating the use of Russian assets and believes that a decision should be made soon. This issue can be discussed at a possible meeting of the leaders of the “Big Seven”, timed to the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

It is noted that the intensification of negotiations is caused by the fact that in recent weeks the allocation of two packages of financial aid for Ukraine in the amount of more than 100 billion dollars failed: because the Republicans in the US Congress and the Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán at the European Union summit opposed the financing of Kiev ( On December 14, Hungary again blocked the European Union’s allocation of economic aid to Ukraine in the amount of 50 billion euros).

In Western countries, about 300 billion dollars of reserves of the Central Bank of Russia are frozen.