ISW: Putin wants to use Trump's Board of Peace to recover frozen assets and offset war costs

According to Ukrinform, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) stated this in a report.

The report notes that on January 21, Putin said that Russia is considering Trump's proposal to join the Board of Peace and could pay the required $1 billion contribution from Russian assets frozen in the United States. Putin added that the remaining frozen Russian assets in the U.S. could be used to restore "territories damaged by the fighting" after a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine is concluded. He said he would raise this issue at a meeting with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, which took place on the evening of January 22.

Analysts suggest that Putin likely meant territories damaged by Russian strikes and occupied by Russia, rather than territories controlled by Ukraine.

"Putin appears to be trying to negotiate the unfreezing of Russian assets not only to fund Trump's Board of Peace but also to rebuild the areas that Russian forces have damaged in Russia's full-scale invasion. The use of frozen Russian assets to rebuild Russian-occupied Ukraine would effectively release the funds back to Russia and offset the costs Russia caused by invading in 2022," the report states.

Funding the reconstruction of Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory would allow these funds to flow back into the Russian economy and help Russia further integrate the economy, society, and infrastructure of Ukraine's temporarily occupied territories into the central Russian system, analysts noted.

As Ukrinform reported, on Thursday, January 22, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Donald Trump announced the launch of the Board of Peace and said that the world has become "richer, safer, and much calmer than it was a year ago."

Trump also invited Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin to join the Board of Peace.