US bipartisan bill to seize Russian assets, hand them to Kiev launched

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Financial Times
16 Jun 2023 16:50
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The legislation would authorize US President Joe Biden to take unilateral action regarding transferring the funds to Ukraine to avoid legal objections.

EU Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas, EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Sweden's Ylva Johansson, and EU Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders on May 25, 2022 (AFP via Getty Images)

A bill was introduced in the United States authorizing US President Joe Biden to seize Russian assets and hand them over them to Kiev in order to fund the reconstruction plan in Ukraine.

The legislation, which was presented by the top-ranking Republican in the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Idaho Rep. Sen. James Risch, was filed on Thursday jointly with Rhode Island Dem. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Following the start of the war in Ukraine, Western countries imposed various forms of sanctions on Russia from a ban on Russian gold to removing its banks from the international SWIFT monetary system, with the decision to freeze around half of Russia's foreign assets - nearly $300 billion - deemed a step too far by many political leaders and analysts.

In June 2022, Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Alexander Venediktov deemed the freeze of Russian assets to be one of the greatest thefts in history.

"The freeze of the Russian assets is one of the greatest thefts in history. The paradox is that perpetrators of this crime are those who have earlier assumed responsibility for maintaining the global economic architecture," Venediktov said then, warning that the West's decision could lead to the collapse of the international Bretton Woods system of monetary management.

The bipartisan bill reflects the growing congressional pressure on Biden from both parties - including his own - and on US allies to establish measures for using Russian money to finance their indirect war against Russia.

The document says that Russia “bears responsibility for the financial burden of the reconstruction of Ukraine" and grants the President authoritative powers to seize Russian sovereign assets frozen in the United States, including those that belong to Russia's central bank.

It also calls on Biden to push for the formation of a “common international compensation mechanism” with American partners to ensure that Russian assets seized in allied countries are also funneled to Ukraine.

For the legislation to pass, it must be approved by the House of Representatives, which saw some bipartisan support for the policy. Among the backers of the bill are Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman and Dem. Marcy Kaptur, who co-chairs the Congressional Ukraine Caucus.

The United Kingdom, which is also placing efforts to establish a mechanism among Kiev's allies to fund Ukraine, will host a conference to discuss the long-term reconstruction of the Eastern European country.

This draft comes at a time when public support for Ukraine in the West is waning due to difficult economic conditions, including the rise of inflation and energy prices.

Former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and former World Bank President Robert Zoellick also supported the bill, in addition to Laurence Tribe, a professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard and the head of Razom for Ukraine - a Ukrainian-American non-profit advocacy organization.

But doubts in the US and Europe over the legality and viability of funding Ukraine's reconstruction using confiscated Russian assets made it difficult to conclude a joint general agreement on the guidelines and mechanism of the measure.

The EU is mulling other ways to transfer money, including using the accumulating interest rate of Russia's seized assets to budget the project, but the European Commission EC legal service has yet to find a solution to what would happen in the event that the bloc loses the invested funds under any circumstances.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen suggested last November establishing a "structure" in order to manage Russian frozen assets and use them to fund Ukraine.

But in April, German newspaper Die Welt reported that EC lawyers concluded that the assets of the Bank of Russia frozen by the EU will be returned to Moscow once the war in Ukraine ends.

EC experts have reached that "sobering conclusion" despite having claimed that "there is political will but legal barriers are high."

Following the statement, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko accused the Commission of trying to loot Russian assets "by hook or by crook."

"All this feverish activity of the European Commission is aimed at finding ways by hook or by crook to 'legitimize' the illegal sanctions adopted against our country and stealing assets belonging to Russian individuals and legal entities," Grushko told Sputnik then.

The White House so far did not declare its position regarding the bill.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said last week that it was “critical that any next steps we take be done via careful consultation with allies and partners,” as most of Russia's sovereign assets are not in the United States.

"We’re examining a number of options, including some that we may be able to take under existing authorities,” she said during a congressional hearing.

The seizure and transfer of Russian assets, however, are not being contemplated without concerns.

Fears include that this move could destabilize the financial markets, set a new precedent in international relations such as using this tool as foreign policy, and trigger a tit-for-tat response from Moscow.

In November 2022, the head of the Central Bank of Russia Elvira Nabiullina said the effects of sanctions on both the world and Russian economies should not be underestimated.

Nabiullina warned that the repercussions of sanctions will be impossible to disregard. She also stressed that sanctions are causing old economic ties with foreign countries to become outdated as new ties are emerging in a clear state of structural transformation, while Moscow's trade geography and demands on its products are changing.

If the seized assets were transferred to Ukraine, the West could lose an important bargaining chip in any future talks with Russia to settle this conflict, some Western diplomats warned.

But Risch justified the bill by saying that this war is a unique case thus this measure is applicable.

“Given Russia’s brutality and continued war crimes against the Ukrainian people, it is only right that Russian government funds in the United States be seized and repurposed to help Ukraine win the war and rebuild its country,” Risch told the Financial Times.