EU will not confiscate frozen russian assets, – DW

The European Union will not confiscate russian assets until russia stops its aggressive war against Ukraine and compensates for the damage caused by its actions.

DW reported this with reference to the text of the conclusions of the EU summit of March 20.

Several EU countries opposed the confiscation of russian assets due to the need to support Ukraine through interest on these funds, as well as to use this money as leverage over the russian federation. In addition, some countries consider the precedent of confiscating funds to be dangerous for the EU financial market.

"According to EU law, Russian assets must remain frozen until Russia stops its aggressive war against Ukraine and compensates it for the damage caused by this war," the text of the conclusions of the EU Summit states.

One European diplomat noted that having russian assets is more important than confiscating them and then not knowing how to use them, the publication writes.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, on March 7, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal announced that Ukraine had received the first GBP 752 million (about USD 1 billion) under the G7 ERA initiative from the United Kingdom.

On March 13, Ukraine received the first tranche of frozen russian assets from Canada.

On March 15, Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Iryna Mudra stated that Ukraine was approaching a critical moment in the process of transferring frozen russian assets for restoration and compensation for losses.