Tens of millions of euros worth of Russian assets are frozen In Estonia

As part of EU sanctions, Estonia has frozen assets of Russians worth tens of millions of euros and, together with the EU, is considering the possibility of using them for the benefit of Ukraine

This is reported by ERR.

They note that more than 90% of the frozen assets are related to Russian oligarchs Andrey Melnychenko and Vyacheslav Kantor.  The first owns the Eurochem company in Sillamäe, and the second owns the DBT company in Muuga.  A number of other companies are also connected with them.

Laura Aus, head of international financial sanctions and prevention of terrorist financing at the Financial Intelligence Agency of Estonia, said that it is currently almost impossible to calculate the exact value of the frozen assets. So, the funds that were frozen in financial institutions and bank accounts amount to about 11.7 million euros, and the funds in the frozen advance accounts of the Tax and Customs Service amount to about 8.4 million.

Aus emphasizes that the amount is constantly changing. This is because companies can use frozen funds to pay for the safe storage of prohibited assets such as chemicals.

So far, a total of more than 35,000 inspections have been conducted to ensure the enforcement of sanctions.  During them, more than 1,300 offenses were detected.  The most common of them is when a person goes to Russia and does not know or pretends not to know about the ban on the export of euro banknotes to the Russian Federation in accordance with the decision of the European Commission.

They also note that the discussion of the issue of using frozen Russian assets for the benefit of Ukraine is ongoing.  However, Estonia notes that it will do this only in synchronization with the EU and the international community.