West must use frozen $300bn of Russian assets to help Ukraine - former US State Department Coordinator Fried

He said this in the Studia West with Antin Borkovskyi program on Espreso TV.

"At the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the G7 countries blocked Russian sovereign assets in their jurisdictions worth more than USD 300 billion. This money is currently frozen. The question is: should it be used to help Ukraine or to compensate for the damage caused by Putin's aggressive war? For various reasons, European governments and the US government are hesitant to take this step, but it seems that they are gradually approaching it. I support such a step and believe that we should use these Russian funds to help Ukraine," the former US State Department coordinator stressed.

According to him, the political discussion is moving in this direction, and the sooner it reaches a good conclusion, the better for the world. This is a potential way out for Ukraine. However, even in the best of circumstances, these resources will not be available immediately, and yet they will be available, and using them is the right decision.

"But how quickly can we inflict economic pain on Russia? It is very important to increase economic pressure and sanctions. A lot of this has to do with enforcement. The European Union has announced its 12th package of sanctions. The US announced new sanctions a few days ago. We have to continue to prevent others from circumventing sanctions so that more and more pressure is put on the Russian economy. And as I said before, we must use the USD 300 billion of frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine," Daniel Fried said.

• The bill on the confiscation and transfer of Russian assets to Ukraine was registered in the US Senate in mid-June.
• On November 30, the US Senate introduced a bill to confiscate Russian assets.
• The European Commission plans to raise €15 billion from Russia's frozen assets to provide financial assistance to Ukraine.
• On December 16, the Financial Times reported that the Group of Seven countries had intensified negotiations and were close to confiscating frozen Russian assets to transfer them to Ukraine.