UK foreign secretary supports using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine restoration
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The British Foreign Office supports the idea of using Russian assets to rebuild Ukraine as an advance on reparations, says the foreign secretary James Cameron.
The foreign secretary is currently visiting Washington DC to meet US secretary of state Antony Blinken.
"Instead of just freezing that money, let's take that money, spend it on rebuilding Ukraine and that is, if you like, a downpayment on reparations that Russia will one day have to pay for the illegal invasion that they've undertaken."
The British minister said he had considered all the arguments for asset confiscation and had not seen anything "to convince him that it is a bad idea."
He also called on the US to approve new funding for Ukraine after Republicans refused to support a bill in the Senate.
"If the US votes through the Ukraine support package, it will give enormous fillip to European countries," he said, following calls from President Joe Biden encouraging Congress to approve the aid.
Since Russia's full-scale war and as of mid-June this year, the UK has frozen more than £18 billion ($23 billion) in assets and imposed sanctions on more than 1,550 Russian entities.
In 2022-2023, Ukrainian Security Service seized assets of Russian businessmen financing the war worth almost $497 million.
Assets of Russian oligarchs are being seized abroad.
Poland has also offered to hand over frozen Russian assets to Ukraine and the EU.
On October 12, the Estonian government approved and sent to the parliament a resolution on the use of Russian frozen assets to help Ukraine.
The EU is studying the procedure of confiscating 200 billion euros of frozen assets of the Russian Central Bank. The European Commission is also developing its proposals.
Belgium has set up a special fund to support Ukraine in the amount of 1.7 billion euros, which is being filled by taxation of Russian assets frozen in the country.
In July, Italy announced that after Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, it froze the assets of Russian oligarchs worth about 2 billion euros.
