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How the UK could force Russia to finance Ukraine’s recovery [1]

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Date: 2023-07

There is consensus among the UK and its G7 partners that Russia should foot the bill for the destruction it has wrought in Ukraine – with recent World Bank estimates putting the cost of reconstruction at $411bn.

At last month’s Ukraine Recovery Conference in London, prime minister Rishi Sunak said Britain was working with its allies to explore “lawful routes” to use frozen Russian assets to rebuild Ukraine.

But Sunak’s government has so far stopped short of proposing the seizure of tens of billions of pounds’ worth of Russian assets currently frozen in UK financial institutions.

Experts have told openDemocracy there are legal ways to use these funds for Ukraine, and that the UK government is showing restraint where others are not, particularly over Russia’s immobilised state assets – which represent a far bigger pot of money than the frozen private riches of sanctioned oligarchs and officials.

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Maria Nizzero, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank, characterised the UK government’s stance as “very, very cautious”.

“They’ve made it very, very clear that anything that’s going to be done is going to be done when the war has ended,” Nizzero said.

Last month the UK government announced new legislation extending sanctions against Russia to promote compensation to Ukraine. UK sanctions will be kept in place, in line with G7 commitments, until Moscow pays damages to Kyiv.

“The clearest legal justification for confiscation is Russia’s failure to pay reparations,” said barrister Tetyana Nesterchuk of Fountain Court Chambers in London, who specialises in international commercial litigation from former Soviet countries.

“Russia is unlikely to pay those reparations voluntarily, so we’ve got to have some kind of back-up plan for Ukraine.”

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/ukraine-reconstruction-russia-uk-rishi-sunak-seized-assets-interest-eu/

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