Germany ready to transfer revenues from frozen Russian assets to Ukraine - Reuters

According to Ukrinform, Reuters reported this with reference to its own sources in the German Ministry of Finance.

"If there is a legally viable mechanism that will enable us to make even better use of these financial flows from the frozen assets in the future, then we are certainly prepared to do so," one German source said.

At the same time, Germany insists that it is ready to confiscate only the income from the frozen Russian assets, not the assets themselves. According to the German Ministry of Finance, this means that fundamental principles of international law such as state immunity are preserved.

It is noted that next week this issue will be discussed at a meeting of the Group of Seven finance ministers in Italy, to which Ukraine has been invited.

As reported by Ukrinform, since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the countries of the democratic world blocked the assets of the Russian Central Bank totaling about EUR 260 billion, of which almost EUR 210 billion are frozen in bank depositories of the EU. Based on interest rate fluctuations, the amount of accruals on these assets in European financial institutions may reach EUR 2.5 to 3 billion annually.

On February 12, 2024, the EU took the first step towards using this money by obliging all central European depositories with more than EUR 1 million of blocked Russian assets on their balance sheets to open separate accounts to accumulate extraordinary profits from accruals on these funds. The resources accumulated in this way are not the property of Russia, but are subject to taxation at the national level and will be used in the interests of Ukraine.

According to publicly available information, the Euroclear financial institution in Belgium currently has EUR 192 billion worth of the Russian Central Bank's assets on its balance sheet. The EU is looking for legal mechanisms to further deal with these immobilized resources. The amount of interest accrued on them has reached EUR 5 billion over the past two years.