PACE Approves Seizure Of Frozen Russian Assets In Ukraine's Favour

Unanimously.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a resolution calling to transfer frozen Russian assets for Ukraine's recovery. All 134 delegates present at the meeting voted in favour.

The document proposes to set up an international trust fund to which the funds seized from Russia will be transferred in order to use them to help Ukraine. According to the idea, the distribution of the assets will take place within the framework of an international compensation mechanism, which should be developed under the auspices of the Council of Europe.

The draft resolution said that Russia, as an aggressor country, is obliged to provide "full compensation" for the damage caused by its unlawful actions, which led to the loss of life and destruction of infrastructure in Ukraine.

PACE calls for setting up an impartial and effective international commission to consider the claims filed by Ukraine and individuals and legal entities affected by the war.

So far, the EU has confirmed its readiness to use only the profits from Russia's frozen assets to help Kyiv. We are talking about the amount of 3-4bn euros a year. The profit is generated by the 190bn euros worth of bonds purchased by the Bank of Russia and held in the Euroclear depository.

However, the US and UK are pushing the EU to confiscate all the funds, and Belgium has proposed using the assets as collateral for the bond issue. Recently, a new initiative has been launched in Washington to leverage the funds against future revenues.

"Instead of transferring [Ukraine's] annual income from reserves, it is conceptually possible to transfer 10 or 30 years of income. Their present value is estimated to be very large," explained White House Deputy National Security Advisor Dalip Singh. According to him, this can be done by issuing bonds or issuing a loan secured by future revenues from the reserves.

The USA has offered to lend Ukraine tens of billions of euros secured by future revenues from frozen Russian reserves.