Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba said on Friday he had asked the G7 industrialized countries to confiscate Russian assets that will be used for the reconstruction of his country, during a meeting of his counterparts in Germany.
“Today, I asked the G7 states to adopt legislation and put in place all the necessary procedures to seize Russian assets and give them to Ukraine for the reconstruction of the country,” said the minister invited to a meeting of the heads of diplomacy of the G7 in Wangels, in the north of Germany.
“Canada has already done it and I have the impression that the others will do it sooner or later,” he assured.
“Russia must pay politically, economically but also financially” for the damage caused by its invasion, he insisted.
Last week, European Council President Charles Michel called for the confiscation of Russian assets frozen in the EU as part of sanctions against Moscow.
“Personally, I am absolutely convinced that it is extremely important not only to freeze the assets, but also to make possible their confiscation, in order to make them available for the country which is rebuilding itself”, he had declared to the agency of Ukrainian press Interfax.
An opinion has been sought from the European Council’s legal service on the feasibility of such a measure, as “there are 27 legal systems in the EU and in many EU member states a decision by a court is necessary”. , had however underlined Mr. Michel.
US President Joe Biden had asked Congress at the end of April to give him the possibility of confiscating the assets of Russian oligarchs blocked in the United States to use them for the benefit of Ukraine.
German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said on Wednesday he was “open” to the idea of using frozen Russian Central Bank capital to help rebuild Ukraine.
The situation regarding the property of private individuals and companies is more complicated, he pointed out, however, because expropriations are subject “to legal standards which we cannot ignore at the political level”.