In the EU frozen Russian assets for € 21.5 billion: what will happen to money further

Ukrainian politicians have repeatedly demanded that frozen assets use to restore the country after the war. The European Commission is now looking for the ways of confiscation of some frozen assets. The EU due to sanctions imposed on the Russian Federation due to a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, 21. 5 billion euros of assets of the aggressor country have been frozen. This was reported by a representative of the European Commission, which takes care of justice, Didier Reinders.

According to him, European officials are currently looking for legal ways to confiscate some assets of the Russian Federation. "We have been able to freeze 21. 5 billion euros of Russian oligarchs and legal entities included in the sanctions lists. We will continue to work on other assets, such as the reserves of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation," he said. Reinders also noted that Brussels was working on a directive to strengthen measures against those who are trying to bypass sanctions.

This work is gradual and involves the transition to the process of confiscation of assets in cases where they are related to criminal offenses. "First, to block or freeze assets. Secondly, to start the confiscation process in cases where there are criminal offenses," he said, stating that the EU is working with G7 and that Switzerland is operating mainly in the same order.

Recently, Bloomberg has reported that the EU is considering the possibility of combining blocked assets at the Russian Federation at the EU level or internationally to generate a profit that could be used to finance Ukraine's restoration. That is, it is not about the transfer of confiscated funds of the aggressor, but only about the referral to the needs of Ukraine of interest income.

Vitaliy Shapran, an economist, member of the Financial Analytics Society, told focus that the amount of assets that Ukraine could get from the EU within the confiscation may be at the level of € 300-400 billion. The final amount depends on the euro rate and the speed of European competent authorities to find assets. "According to current open data, the volume of reserves available for confiscation is about $ 350 billion.

In addition, you need to take away those Russian assets that are outside the country. And although there are no direct data on their volume, preliminary analysis of capital withdrawal from the state- The aggressor indicates that it is not less than $ 1 trillion, " - said the deputy director of the financial company Activitis, Irina Popova.

We will remind, as long as the EU showed caution, in the US at the end of 2022 already adopted legislative changes, which opened the possibility of using frozen funds of Russians for the needs of Ukraine. Focus also said that in Switzerland they refused to transfer frozen assets of the Russian Federation to Ukraine. It is emphasized that the working group that studied the confiscation issue has come to the conclusion that it was "undermining the federal constitution and the legal order.