Politico: Russiaʼs allies persuade EU not to confiscate Kremlinʼs frozen assets

Countries sympathetic to Russia are demanding that the EU abandon any plans for mass confiscation of Russian state assets.

This was reported by Politico with reference to sources.

According to media reports, representatives of China, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia are privately persuading the EU to resist pressure from the US and Great Britain to confiscate more than €200 billion in Russian state assets that they froze after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

"These countries are very skeptical of this idea. The concern is that this will set a precedent — in other words, these countries fear that they could be the next to lose,” one person told to Politico.

Another unnamed diplomat from a non-EU country noted that "the Russians could have asked their friends to make this ruckus."

If this is so, then the lobbying of these countries will follow a pattern similar to that observed after the start of the war in Ukraine, when governments that did not always come out in support of Russia, nevertheless carried out some of Moscowʼs orders.

For example, Turkey, China and the UAE allowed Russia to avoid some Western sanctions imposed after the full-scale invasion began, boosting its economy and allowing it to finance its war machine.

The Gulf statesʼ argument is that seizing Russian assets could prolong the war and force them to take sides against their wishes.

The escalation of the war and the possibility of Russiaʼs defeat are against the interests of the Persian Gulf countries, according to Teodor Karasyk, senior adviser of the consulting company Gulf State Analytics.

According to him, the countries of the Persian Gulf do not want the collapse of the Russian Federation. In addition, using Russian assets to rebuild Ukraine could undermine their ambitions to play a leading role in the countryʼs post-war reconstruction, the analyst added.

• Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the EU has frozen the assets of the Russian Central Bank for more than €200 billion. Currently, the United States and the European Union are looking for legal opportunities to use all $300 billion of frozen Russian assets for the benefit of Ukraine.
• US President Joe Biden wants the G7 countries to make progress on implementing plans to use frozen Russian assets for the benefit of Ukraine before the leadersʼ meeting in June 2024. Biden privately told his allies that if Ukraine loses, the international order will be turned upside down for at least the next five decades.
• The British authorities stated that the country is ready to lend Ukraine all the assets of the Russian central bank frozen in the United Kingdom. This serves as a guarantee that the Russian Federation will pay reparations to Kyiv after the end of the war.
• The Financial Times wrote that Ukraine may receive the first part of revenues from Russian assets frozen in the EU in July.