The United States calls on EU countries to start using frozen Russian reserves to help Ukraine

The United States has approved a European proposal to tax the income of Russian banks and transfer it to Ukraine, and is also persuading European governments to use the reserves of the Russian Central Bank to help it.

As The Washington Post writes, citing sources, “the United States has become much more open to the use of Russian reserves.” Their amount is approximately 300 billion dollars, 5 billion are in the United States.

However, financiers in European countries are not inclined to make such a decision. Experts warn of serious financial risks and legal problems if this money is misappropriated. Moreover, in the United States, even optimistic supporters of the redirection of these assets to Ukraine believe that this will take months, or even more than a year.

The Washington Post recalls: the United States has encountered problems in approving a new aid package to Ukraine, but officials insist that these are unrelated processes:

“U.S. officials are adamant that Russian bank reserves cannot replace the new emergency military and economic aid from Washington that Ukraine needs to survive the next few months of war.”

Belgium has already announced that next year it will transfer 1.7 billion euros of the above-mentioned income to Ukraine. And the Estonian government, as “European Truth” writes, approved a bill on the use of Russian frozen assets and will send to parliament an amendment to the Law on International Sanctions. It provides for domestic rules for the use of frozen assets of sanctioned persons to compensate for the damage caused by the Russian war to Ukraine.

According to the bill, Estonia’s legal space will be organized more broadly so that the competence and powers of institutions to implement and supervise sanctions are clearer and more effective, the government said. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said yesterday:

“The bill that the government and I sent to parliament today allows the frozen assets of persons sanctioned in Estonia to be used to compensate for damage from the war in Ukraine. We must be an example and an incentive for other European countries in establishing similar rules. Russia must compensate Ukraine for all damage caused by the war harm”.

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