Germany: 5.3 billion euros in Russian assets frozen in the space of a year

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks at the Munich Security Conference, Friday, February 17, 2023. AP - Michael Probst

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1 min

Almost a year after the start of the war in Ukraine, the European Union has adopted various sanctions packages against Russian individuals and entities.

Their application also involves freezing Russian assets in the 27 European countries.

So far, more than twenty billion euros, of which a quarter in Germany.

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With our correspondent in Berlin,

5.3 billion euros: this is the amount of Russian assets hit by European Union sanctions that have been frozen in Germany.

The newspaper

cites information from the Ministry of Finance in Berlin.

These assets belong to entities like the Russian Central Bank, sanctioned companies and individuals.

The German government would not respond to the newspaper's request about the amount of assets belonging to oligarchs.

This amount will undoubtedly increase, because the commission created for the application of the sanctions only began its work at the beginning of the year.

Its workforce – today, 36 people – must be revised upwards.

This commission must establish an exhaustive list of the assets concerned by the sanctions against Russia in Germany, which must be published on its site, which is not yet the case.

On Friday, Brussels had said that so far more than 21 billion euros in Russian assets have been frozen in the 27 countries of the European Union.

kyiv asks that these sums be used for the reconstruction of Ukraine, but this is not easy legally.

► See also United States: funds confiscated from a Russian oligarch donated to Ukraine

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• Germany

• European Union

• Russia

• finance