Ukraine lobbing UNGA to confiscate russian assets for war damages – media

Ukraine is lobbying the UN General Assembly to adopt a resolution that will become the basis for creating an international compensation mechanism that could lead to the seizure of russian state assets abroad worth up to $300 billion.

The Guardian reports, citing sources.

According to the publication, Ukraine's deputy justice minister Iryna Mudra was in London last week to discuss this issue with the British Foreign Office after lobbying the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg together with Olena Zelenska, the wife of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky.

Mudra also reportedly led detailed legal and policy discussions on reparations, negotiating in Germany, Paris, and Brussels with US Treasury Assistant Secretary Elizabeth Rosenberg.

Last week, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted a decision to ensure russia's responsibility for aggression against Ukraine. In a statement, the committee "noted with interest the Ukrainian proposals to establish a comprehensive international compensation mechanism, including, as a first step, an international register of damage."

In June, the US Justice Department said the US and its allies had frozen $30 billion in russian elite assets and $300 billion in russian central bank assets held abroad.

British and EU sanctions legislation allows states to freeze the assets of the russian central bank and some oligarchs. Still, it does not provide for their final arrest, let alone their unilateral transfer to a fund for the reconstruction of Ukraine.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the reparations would be illegal under current US law. However, it is believed that the US could invoke the Trading with Enemy Act or the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Reparations were supported in a joint statement by the finance ministers of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovakia. As British Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss previously expressed support for the idea but has not recently repeated the proposal.

Earlier it was reported that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, would be on a working visit to the USA on September 19-23 to participate in the 77th session of the UN General Assembly.

Read Rubryka's timeline of war: current news on Ukraine's defense against russia's aggression.