Zelensky called on the West to transfer the frozen assets of the Russian Federation to Ukraine

The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, called on Western countries to hand over to his country approximately $300 billion of Russian assets abroad, frozen after the start of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. According to Zelensky, this would be a fair step that would make Russia “pay for aggression.”

“This will be the right signal to all potential aggressors in the world: an attack on another state does not bring dividends, the aggressor will have to pay in the end,” Zelensky wrote in his account on the social network Kh.

Earlier, the British newspaper Financial Times wrote that Western countries are actively studying ways to confiscate frozen Russian assets in favor of Ukraine. It is claimed that in recent weeks, the USA has taken a more assertive position in private negotiations regarding the confiscation of frozen Russian assets. At the meetings of the Group of Seven, the United States asserts that there is a way to confiscate assets “in accordance with international law.” “Members of the G7 and other states can confiscate Russia’s assets as a countermeasure to encourage Russia to end its aggression,” says a US government document seen by the newspaper.

This issue can be discussed at a possible meeting of the leaders of the Group of Seven, timed to the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February.

It is noted that the intensification of negotiations is caused by uncertainty about the fate of two packages of financial aid for Ukraine worth more than 100 billion dollars: the US Congress has still not made a decision on financing Kyiv for 2024, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban December 14, Hungary at the EU summit blocked the allocation of EU economic aid to Ukraine in the amount of 50 billion euros in the coming years.

In Moscow, meanwhile, threatened retaliatory measures in case of confiscation of frozen Russian assets.

• In Western countries, from February 2022, reserves of the Central Bank of Russia in the amount of about 300 billion dollars have been frozen.