The Guardian: UK to keep Kremlin assets frozen until Russia pays compensation to Ukraine

Britain is likely to keep Russian state assets immobilised for some time after the war in Ukraine ends, and certainly until Moscow has agreed to pay compensation for the damage it has inflicted, British officials have confirmed.

The Council of Europe summit last week established a digital register of damage for Ukraine as the first step towards an international compensation mechanism for victims of Russian aggression, according to The Guardian.

On May 19, the UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly, insisted that Russia’s sovereign assets would remain immobilised until Russia agreed to pay for the damage it had caused in Ukraine. But the consequences of the evolving British position on postwar negotiations with Russia, including the retention of Russian central bank assets as leverage for compensation, are only gradually emerging. It is thought that about $300bn (£243bn) in Russian central bank reserves were in G7 states at the time of the freezing, but the mapping of the assets is not complete.

“Officials say work is continuing day and night, including with the EU, over the feasibility of confiscating Russian state assets, but no solution has yet been found. Tory backbench MPs, the Labour party and the Ukrainian government are pressing for Russian state assets held in the UK – valued at £26bn last year – to be seized outright and then handed directly to Ukraine for reconstruction,” the report said.

It added that “but an alternative, less legally risky strategy is gaining ground whereby the west holds on to the assets until Russia agrees to pay compensation. The same objective of Russia’s funding of Ukraine’s reconstruction would be achieved, but without taking the risk of breaching international law by simply seizing Russian assets”.

The Commons has already passed a motion requiring the government to come up with a plan on the use of Russian state assets, but for months it has been refusing to commit to the effective expropriation of the Russian central bank assets stored in the UK, fearing the move would set a precedent that would paralyse the international financial system, and lead to countermeasures against the UK.