West reveals conditions for returning frozen assets to Russia

The collective West will not return to Russia its frozen assets worth around $300 billion until Moscow compensates for its special military operation in Ukraine, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O'Brien said.

"[US] President [Joe Biden] and his G7 colleagues <…> just today reaffirmed that Russia must pay and that Russia’s immobilized funds, which, as you say, are about $300 billion will not be returned to Russia until it does pay. So we have leverage in this discussion," he said, addressing the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, per TASS.

Previously, US President Joe Biden filed a request to the US Congress to provide additional military and other aid to Ukraine and Israel worth about $106 billion. According to the accompanying documents, published by the White House, the request for the fiscal year 2024 proposes to allocate over $61.4 billion for Ukraine and over $14.3 billion for Israel. The future of the request is unknown at this point. A number of Republican members in both chambers of the Congress have publicly spoken out against continuing financial aid to Ukraine.

Russian Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina said on November 8 that freezing and confiscation of Russian assets by the West "will set a precedent of negative consequences overall for the development of the global financial system.".