The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee has approved a bill that would help the United States seize frozen Russian assets and hand them over to Ukraine for recovery after a full-scale war.
This is reported by Reuters.
The law "On restoration of economic prosperity and opportunities for Ukrainians" was supported by 20 members of the Committee, only one was against.
If the full Senate and House of Representatives support this legislation, and US President Joe Biden signs it, it will be the first in the history of the United States to seize the assets of the Central Bank of a country with which they are not at war.
Democratic Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ben Cardin said the bill has broad support from both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate and House, as well as from the Biden administration.
The only one who voted against was pro-Russian Republican Senator Rand Paul.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a similar bill, which also received overwhelming bipartisan support.
- The EU, the USA, Japan and Canada have frozen a total of about $300 billion in assets of the Russian Central Bank since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, the United States keeps only up to $6 billion. At the same time, the EU has frozen more than €200 billion, a large part of which is kept in the Euroclear depository in Belgium.
- There is still no clear legal mechanism for the transfer of Russian sovereign assets in favor of Ukraine, however, recently partners from the USA and the EU have been working on this.
- Since most of the frozen assets are located in the EU, some European leaders fear the legal consequences of the idea of confiscation — the frozen assets of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation are protected by international law. However, EU leaders approved a plan to transfer revenues from frozen Russian assets to Ukraine.