Russia has chance to escape sanctions on frozen assets – former Ukrainian PM

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, head of the Kyiv Security Forum and Ukraine's former PM, stated this during the PolitClub with Vitaly Portnikov program on the Espreso TV channel.

“These sovereign assets, denominated in euros and held in Brussels at Euroclear, are estimated at up to 300 billion dollars,” he reminded.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk added that in June, the EU member states must vote on the extension of sanctions against Russia, as such votes are held every six months. In this regard, he noted that the question remains whether Article 7 of the EU Treaty could be applied to Hungary—“which would effectively strip Hungary of its voting rights”—or whether it will not be applied, “which contradicts the security interests of the European Union itself.”

“The game could get very dirty. They might even try to use the American administration in order to lift the freeze on the 300 billion dollars of (Russian – ed.) assets through Europe,” he emphasized.

Yatsenyuk went on to highlight that Russia has a serious chance to get out from under the sanctions.

“If Trump publicly or privately tells Orbán to vote a certain way—he will. And if not, or if someone else says something different, then this is, in principle, a very serious chance for Russia to escape EU sanctions on its main and most tangible asset,” Yatsenyuk stated.

He emphasized that this is the money Ukraine could use to purchase weapons and compensate for damages.

“This is the kind of asset that can be considered classic reparations under international law. And it might end up being released. Therefore, this is another extremely important challenge, and we will see how it unfolds in two months,” the head of the Kyiv Security Forum added.

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, commenting on the recent visit of Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev to the United States, noted that one of the main purposes of the trip was to try to reclaim the 300 billion dollars in frozen Russian assets.