FROZEN RUSSIAN ASSETS WILL REBUILD CONFLICT-RAVAGED UKRAINE, EU CHIEF VON DER LEYEN SAYS

Wed 21 June 2023:

The European Union will make a proposal to use frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine in the coming weeks, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday.

The European Commission will put forward a plan to do so before the summer break, von der Leyen said while attending a conference on Ukrainian reconstruction in London.

She said frozen Russian assets should be used “because the perpetrator has to be held accountable.”

The Ukraine Recovery Conference, which is being held in London on Wednesday and Thursday, is supposed to lay the foundations for rebuilding Ukraine from the destruction of the ongoing Russian invasion.

The focus is on how private-sector companies can be encouraged to invest in the country and help rebuilt its economy.

Last month, the United States transferred for the first time seized assets from a sanctioned Russian tycoon to Ukraine for rehabilitation of the war-torn country, the Financial Times reported.

Garland said the money was transferred to the state department and would be “dedicated to that purpose”. The state department said it had received “a $5.4mn transfer from the Department of Justice via the Kleptocapture Task Force”.

U.S. attorney-general Merrick Garland said, additional moves of this kind would be forthcoming. “While this represents the United States’ first transfer of forfeited Russian funds for the rebuilding of Ukraine, it will not be the last,” he said in a statement.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, US and western officials have debated ways of using seized Russian assets to help Ukraine. Last year, President Joe Biden enacted a law that facilitated that process in Washington. The cost of reconstruction and recovery in Ukraine now stands at €383bn, according to a March report from the European Commission, World Bank, UN, and government of Ukraine.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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