STRESA: The G7 will explore means of using the future income from frozen Russian assets to help Kyiv, Finance Ministers from the Group of Seven industrial democracies said on Saturday. According to Reuters, the G7 froze around $300 billion of Russian assets shortly following Russia invaded its neighbor in February 2022.
The statement said that they are making progress in their discussions on potential avenues to bring forward the extraordinary profits stemming from immobilized Russian assets to the benefit of Ukraine.
The development comes as Ukraine said it had “stopped” the Russian advance in the Kharkiv region but Ukraine’s General Staff acknowledged Saturday “the enemy has partial success” and stated “the situation is very tense” as fighting continued.
Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko also reportedly attended Saturday’s G7 meeting in Stresa seeking to tap notice from frozen assets of Russia.
Earlier, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire stated that they needed to reach a declaration of principle that marks the overall agreement of the G7 nations to use revenues from Russian assets to finance Kyiv.
Calls have also mounted this year in the West to establish a fund for Kyiv using billions of dollars in bank accounts, investments and other assets frozen since Moscow’s 2022 attack.
In February, the US argued that G7 countries should seize the frozen assets outright, an idea it later backed away from due to the concern of allies that it could be a dangerous legal precedent and that Moscow could retaliate.
