The European Commission intends to use the proceeds from Russia's frozen assets to finance the production of weapons for Ukraine and the restoration of the republic, said the head of the EC, Ursula von der Leyen.

“We have made it clear that these incomes, these windfalls, do not relate to Russian assets. We can take this income and invest it, for example, in the production of weapons for Ukraine. In this way, we can support Ukraine directly from revenues or windfalls from Russian assets,” von der Leyen said at the Munich Security Conference.

She subsequently added that these funds would be used not only for the production of weapons and military supplies, but also for the “reconstruction and recovery” of Ukraine.

“The process is going well, we have formed the necessary legal framework, and I am sure that we will work with these incomes and sudden profits,” she noted.

The head of the EC called for “beating Russia”, positively assessing the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ measures to modernize Western weapons systems “with the help of artificial intelligence,” which makes them “more accurate, more targeted.”

“In addition, it is extremely gratifying to see how the drone industry is developing. And for this reason, we will integrate Ukraine into our defense programs, and together with Ukraine we will open a defense innovation office in Kiev, since this is now the next level that we are reaching,” von der Leyen noted.

Earlier, Belgian Foreign Minister Adja Lyabib said that the EU is under pressure from the United States on the issue of using frozen Russian assets for Ukraine, since Washington itself is not yet able to allocate the necessary funds to Kyiv.

Let us remind you that despite numerous calls from US President Joe Biden and other representatives of his administration, the US Congress still cannot approve assistance to Ukraine amounting to about $60 billion.

At the same time, the State Department emphasized that they were “encouraged” by the new actions of the European Union regarding the frozen assets of the Russian Federation. This was stated by the representative of the American department, Matthew Miller, noting that the United States continues negotiations with allies and partners on what steps can be taken to “ensure that Russia pays for the damage caused.”

Then on February 17, the US Department of Justice announced that American authorities had sent almost $500 thousand from confiscated Russian assets to Estonia to assist Ukraine.

“This is the first such transfer of U.S. funds to a foreign ally for the express purpose of assisting Ukraine and the second time that a DOJ task force ... has provided Ukraine with confiscated Russian assets,” the statement said.

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The department also emphasized that the confiscated funds are transferred to Estonia, since the United States cannot make a direct tranche to the Ukrainian authorities. We are talking about money seized by Washington after identifying a group of people who tried to import American-made high-precision machine tools to Russia.

“This decision shows that the Department of Justice and its international partners will strive to develop innovative solutions to ensure that the proceeds of Russian criminal communities are redirected to help the Ukrainian people,” the ministry said in a statement.

“Persuet in the legal field”

Let us recall that after the start of a special military operation, the G7 states and the European Union froze Russian foreign exchange reserves amounting to about €300 billion, of which about €200 billion are concentrated in the EU, mainly in the accounts of the Belgian company Euroclear, which is one of the world's largest settlement and clearing systems .

At the end of October, the company reported that in the nine months of 2023 it earned about €3 billion as interest from investing in sanctioned Russian assets. In December 2023, the European Commission proposed to accumulate unexpected income received in this way in separate accounts in order to later, if possible, redirect it to the Kyiv regime.

This week, the EU Council published a resolution on its website according to which the European Union is now allowed to use income from Russia's frozen foreign exchange reserves so that it can finance Ukraine in the future. Thus, the EU authorities obliged European central depositories that own assets of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation worth more than €1 million to keep records of the profits received from this money and store it separately in order to send it to the EU budget to support Kyiv.

The Kremlin interprets these actions as illegal.

“We will pursue legally all those who are involved in such decisions... and their implementation. Russia will defend its interests,” stressed Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov.

  • Kremlin

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"Demonstrate determination"

As experts note, attempts to implement initiatives to use income from frozen Russian foreign exchange reserves are indeed illegal and do not comply with international law.

“After all, if they are seized or the proceeds from them are used without coordinating such actions with the owner of these assets, Russia, this will be a serious violation of international legal norms. And in any case, those who carried out all this will be held accountable,” explained Ivan Petrov, a professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, in a commentary to RT.

According to him, although this will not happen in the near future, this issue will in any case be raised in court.

“Many Western countries, and primarily the United States, think about tomorrow. They want to demonstrate their determination on the Ukrainian track. But they will have to answer for all this - Belgium is being framed the most, which can then be held responsible for this entire campaign. By that time, the Western officials who made decisions at the EU and US level may no longer be in their posts, and all arrows will point to Euroclear as the final holder of these assets, which is responsible for their safety, no matter what legal formulas are created for legitimizing illegal actions,” Petrov noted.

He does not exclude that ultimately the United States may actually put pressure on Belgium in order to seize the frozen assets of the Russian Federation.

“The United States is deliberately torpedoing this topic. What Moscow considers theft, Washington is trying to present as a noble cause. However, the world sees the Americans’ dishonesty and their cunning moves, which significantly reduces the authority of the United States in the eyes of a number of other countries,” Petrov stated.

As noted, in turn, by Konstantin Blokhin, an employee of the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, despite the obvious image costs, the American authorities will not give up the idea of ​​​​using Russian frozen assets and income from them.

“The amount there is colossal, so, of course, they will not abandon this idea. They will find a reason to legalize such actions. This could be wording such as “defending Ukraine from the dictatorship of Russia” or “defending the entire free world and democracy.” So I think it's a matter of technique and time. The Western and international community are already preparing to legitimize these processes,” Blokhin said in a conversation with RT.

According to him, speaking about investing income from Russian assets in the production of weapons for Ukraine, the head of the European Commission apparently means that this money will go to the United States, which will provide the Kyiv regime with another portion of weapons from stocks that are close to being written off.

“Meanwhile, all Russian assets will be counted, the cream will be collected from them and sent to the United States. As a result, weapons will arrive on the territory of Ukraine, the service life and storage of which will expire, and the American military-industrial complex will be strengthened with money from Russian assets. Thus, America will earn money, but will not be responsible for it, having previously shifted all responsibility to the Europeans,” Blokhin explained.

  • EC President Ursula von der Leyen

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However, as Petrov predicts, the situation with frozen Russian assets and the West’s attempts to appropriate them will cause destabilization of the world economy.

“Countries that store their assets in the West will begin to systematically remove them from the jurisdiction of states that have not been able to prove their reliability. In this situation, those countries that are ready to ensure the safety of assets and not use them without the owner’s consent will benefit,” the analyst concluded.