Russia must pay for its aggression against Ukraine – finance minister

The Russian authorities have decided to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and they must pay for this decision after the end of the war.

Finance Minister of Ukraine Serhiy Marchenko said this in an interview with Sky News, Ukrinform reports.

"Doing war in Ukraine is their [Russia’s] decision - so that's why they should pay for the decision after the war,” he said.

According to Marchenko, frozen assets of Russian banks abroad, frozen assets of Russian business oligarchs and additional taxes on Russia may be used to pay reparations to Ukraine.

In addition, Marchenko said that he hoped the global community would be able to enforce reparations from Russia based on international judicial processes and that the "necessary amount" could be raised to support Ukrainian reconstruction.

"Just our infrastructure, critical infrastructure, costs us $120 billion which was damaged by war and, if you add social and military infrastructure, it could be more than $500 billion,” he said.

As Ukrinform reported, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal stated that Ukraine's daily state budget expenditures related to the war amount to about UAH 2 billion, while the total daily losses of the Ukrainian state, related to the destruction of infrastructure and loss economic potential, amount to up to USD 4 billion.

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